


The Rancher (18+ Only) (Novella)

by queenhoneebee



Series: Wattpad Original Stories [7]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:09:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 75,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28708713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenhoneebee/pseuds/queenhoneebee
Summary: Was deleted off Wattpad. I'm looking into self-publishing.Yvonne, a successful NY data analyst travelling across the country to deliver all important statistics to her boss in his hometown, finds her rental car breaking down in the middle of nowhere.James, an ostracised lone rancher and local 'middle of nowhere' resident, is more than willing to help her get back on her feet.
Series: Wattpad Original Stories [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2104437





	1. Prologue: In Which She Looks Inwards

**PROLOGUE: In Which She Looks Inwards**

**Yvonne**

_Knowing yourself is the beginning of accepting yourself._

_Finding yourself, however, is a different thing altogether. You aren’t a ten-dollar bill in last winter’s coat pocket, stashed away as a surprise for later. You can spend your whole life thinking that you’re one person. In the blink of an eye, everything can change._

_Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people’s opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are._

Finding yourself _is about returning to yourself. Unlearning the years of other people’s so-called expressions of you about who you are and how you should be. Finding yourself is remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you._

 _But then again, life isn’t about finding yourself. It is about_ creating _yourself._

That was the bullshit spiel that my sister used to spout to me whenever I would complain that my life was going wrong. Or when I’d come to her to ask for her advice about a guy I was seeing, or which class I should take if I wanted to go a specific place in my career.

She’s all about that inward searching of self to find your ‘true person’ and all that. I didn’t totally believe all that. In my eyes, who you are and who you want to be aren’t so totally different. They’re like two sides of the same coin. You can’t really have one without the other.

Sure, life is about growth and change, but it also doesn’t have to be the solo journey that my sister makes it out to be.

You know how people say ‘it takes a village’ to raise a person? I believe that… at least, _now_ I do.

I think that we’re all a product of our surroundings and our peers, and I think that it’s up to each individual person to surround themselves with the _right_ village. Hence, why I ask for my sister’s advice, even if it’s unhelpful and vague and metaphoric.

Life shouldn’t be a solo search for who you are on the inside. Because at the end of the day, no one can _see_ the inside of you. Life is about how you are to those around you. It’s not some metaphor and it’s not a dress rehearsal.

But, if you’re the kind of person who sides with my sister, you probably believe that the best way to find yourself is to get lost in the first place.

Which, I guess applied to me, too. I was certainly lost.

But if you’re like me, maybe this will help you. I’ve learnt to realize that there are really only two things that matter to show people who you really are. What makes you _happy_ , and what gives you _meaning_.

I didn’t always know that.

My village had to teach me…

.


	2. One: In Which She Is Stranded

**ONE: In Which She Is Stranded**

**Yvonne**

Getting off the five-hour flight from New York to Topeka wasn’t the problem I was facing. It was everything that followed that was fucking up my day for me.

I wasn’t even supposed to be there, but my boss, who was staying at his holiday home in Kansas – who has a holiday home in _Kansas?!_ – apparently needed files at the drop of a hat that were so top secret they _couldn’t possibly_ be faxed.

Let me start over.

I was one of the best data analysts in all of New York. I used to work for an uppity corporate law firm in the city until I decided to leave and work for Myron Banks. Myron Banks is an absolute tech genius. He worked on Wall St, and made a name for himself there before inventing some newfangled top-of-the-line cyber security system that made him an overnight bajillionaire.

He became the sole owner of one of the highest grossing security firms in the country, and of course, only hired the best. So, there I was, poached from my position at _Rivera, Ruick and Huntley_ , to start as his firm’s head of data analysis.

What does a data analyst do, I hear you asking. Well, I’m good with numbers. My job is basically to keep my boss from making terrible business decisions. Myron Banks might be a genius when it comes to security systems and cyber threats, but he’d be lost if he didn’t have people like me.

I collect and process statistical data – aka, I crunch the numbers – and translate the numbers into decipherable English to help organizations identify ways of reducing costs and find opportunities for growing revenue. I’m like a Public Relations representative, but for quantifiable data.

It sounds technical, but it isn’t really.

It _is_ however, a very sought after position if you’re the right person for the job – which I am – and in my line of business it can mean the difference between profits over a million dollars for certain deals. My background at a major corporate law firm was one of my major selling points as to being hired, as my skill set is specific and refined.

I’m irreplaceable.

Which was why I was the only person that Banks trusted enough to deliver these top-secret analyses files to his vacation home in the middle of buttfuck-nowhere.

So, why was my day fucked as soon as I landed in Topeka? Good question.

It was typical of Myron Banks that his request for these files was absolutely last minute on a Friday, so by the time I’d landed in the Midwest it was already long past sundown. My watch informed me that it was already 10pm, and I had a long drive ahead of me to get out to Banks’ remote estate.

But, here’s why my day was fucked. For someone so cashed up and successful, Banks was a cheapskate. So, I had to hire a rental car, because god forbid he send for a car service.

The line for the rental service was massive, at least an hour. So, there I was, looking incredibly out of place in my sensible business attire, holding nothing but Banks’ briefcase of files, and my small carry-on suitcase of a week’s worth of clothing.

Because flights between New York and Topeka only occurred once a week, and it had only been due to pure luck that I’d managed to get onto one on the exact day that Banks had demanded his briefcase.

My frenzy of packing had left my apartment in a whirlwind of mess, of which my three roommates would hopefully never have to see as it was restricted to the confines of my bedroom. Then I had rushed to JFK in order not to miss the last flight out.

The situation was entirely too ridiculous. And if I’m honest, I wasn’t paid enough for this shit.

Not when Banks made enough money that he could have arranged for a private jet if he wasn’t such a tight-ass that he couldn’t loosen the purse-strings for files that were oh-so-important.

The rental car line was moving too slowly for my liking.

Pulling out my phone, I decided to text my older sister, Cecelia, to let her know that I’d landed. She had called me while I’d been in a packing frenzy at home and I figured I’d just keep her updated.

Cecelia lived in Philadelphia, and as my only family, I’d say we were fairly close. We called each other most days to check in, so her call hadn’t really been all that surprising.

Her news had been, however. She owned her own gym and spa, and she was gushing about some new personal trainer that she’d hired who was apparently entirely too yummy.

 _“You know you’re not allowed to fraternize with your own staff?”_ I’d chided as a shoved my last pairs of clean underwear into my bag. I hadn’t done laundry yet and only just come off my period last week, so all I had left were all my uncomfortable lingerie that I really only left for date nights and sexy times. _“You’re the one who implemented that law in your own contracts.”_

 _“Yeah, I know.”_ I could practically hear her smirking through the phone. _“Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the merchandise each and every day that he works.”_

I’d rolled my eyes with a chuckle and told her I’d have to call her back some other time to hear about this yummy new trainer. To be honest, I didn’t know how she managed to run that business. If it were me, I’d be drooling and distracted so often that I wouldn’t get any work done.

**Just landed. Waiting for a rental car. Line could wrap around the earth *twice* if it tried -_- –Y**

I commended her. She was a better woman than I.

I took a slow step forward with a sigh as the line got infinitesimally smaller. My phone buzzed.

**Fuck! ur msg scared me haha I was sitting on the edge of my seat. Damon is about to confess his love for Elena. Thx for interrupting. RUDE! Also, really? Only just now?! Okay well, safe driving dude if you ever manage to get a ride. Lmk what the hotel is like. Send pics and I’ll YELP for ya ;) –C**

I rolled my eyes with a grin, sending a thumbs up emoji in reply. Cece was a _Yelp_ addict if I’d ever seen one. And an even bigger _Vampire Diaries_ addict, though I didn’t really see the hype.

It felt like a lifetime before I finally got to the front of the line.

“What can I do for you, miss?” a clerk asked. He couldn’t have been any older than me, but he looked damn tired. I didn’t blame him. Working around jerk customers at an airport had to suck ass.

“I’d like to rent a small car for a week,” I said, taking my company card from my purse to pay. “Two seater or five, whichever is easier.”

The clerk frowned. “I’m sorry, miss,” he said. “The only vehicles we have left are from our people mover range.”

My brow furrowed. “As in a minivan?”

The man nodded unsurely. I sighed.

“You’re sure you can’t check again?” I bit my lip, giving him a little bit of the doe eyes. He watched me for a moment before nodding, his fingers tapping away at the keyboard. His eyes lit up.

“Oh, okay,” he smiled. “We do have a small car that has just been readmitted into our service. It must have come through just a moment ago,” he mused. I refused to roll my eyes. _Sure it did,_ I said to myself, _You weren’t trying to shake me down_ at all _, huh?_

His expression dropped. “Oh, uh actually, wait. This car has been having some problems.” His eyes dipped up to mine, only to see my face drop. Then he bit his lip and looked over his shoulder to see if a supervisor was looking his way. “I can’t _recommend_ this car to you, miss,” he said, “But seeing as it hasn’t been taken out of circulation…?” he rose an eyebrow, begging me to understand without having to finish the sentence.

I nodded coolly. “I’ll take it,” I said, sliding my AMEX over the table. I could handle a little car trouble if it came to rise. Despite being a ride or die New Yorker, I had a _AAA_ subscription courtesy of _Myron Banks Ltd_.

The clerk smiled, accepting the card. “Alright then,” he smiled. “We’ll just get it squared away then. Expected return date?”

I smiled easily. “A week from today.”

The clerk nodded, tapping away at the keys. “Okay. The car does come with a bunch of information in the passenger glove box with how to extend the rental if need be.”

I shook my head. “That’s really okay. I won’t be staying any longer than the seven days. My return flight is already booked.”

The clerk’s eyes became tight at my tone. I hadn’t meant it to sound so snobbish, as if I’d rather be anywhere else but Topeka. But I couldn’t help it.

“Of course,” he nodded, handing me back my card. “Well, that’s done. And here are your keys. Have a pleasant trip, miss. If you’d please just wait to the side and a concierge will bring the vehicle around for you. Next.”

I nodded, taking the keys from his hand. I rolled my eyes to myself. _Just came into the system, my ass. How did you have the keys then?_

I decided to let it go and instead stepped to the side. Another concierge brought the small car around. It wasn’t anything to write home about, just a simple small white car.

Exchanging keys with the concierge, I placed my luggage in the car and got into the drivers’ seat. I practically groaned at the time that met me on the smart screen. 11.30pm.

I programmed my boss’ address into the GPS and then let out a long sigh.

“You will arrive at your destination in T-Minus three hours and seventeen minutes,” Siri chimed.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I muttered before putting the car into drive and speeding the hell out of the airport car yard. The sooner this job was done, the sooner I could sit in a dingy motel for a week, trying to use their dodgy Wi-Fi to keep working.

My boss wasn’t going to be happy with me knocking on his door at three in the morning, but he also wouldn’t accept me waiting until reasonable work hours when he had specifically asked for these files _ASAP_.

I didn’t have a choice. So, begrudgingly, I blasted the air conditioning and Bruno Mars’ _Doo-Wops & Hooligans_ album and resigned myself to my fate.

An hour into my drive and I could tell you that I was sick of Kansas. Compared to New York City, I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to live out here. I was used to the hustle and bustle of the metro city, and the all-too-quiet and deserted landscape here was giving me the heebie-jeebies.

I hadn’t seen anyone on the road since I’d gotten out of Topeka, but I’d chalked that up to the fact that it was midnight and only stupid people were on the road at midnight. I was also pretty sure that Siri was taking me some fucked up way, because the GPS thought we were in the middle of a cornfield.

_Did Kansas even grow corn?_

Maybe it was the bad vibes that I was feeling that just absolutely had to do me in. Or you know, maybe I should have just heeded the advice of the car rental clerk that the shitbox I’d just rented had problems.

When I saw the smoke start billowing from the engine, all I could think was _should’ve taken the minivan_. With a yell of annoyance, I pulled over the car as it started to make a horrendous clanking noise.

With my luck, as I slowed and turned the car to the side of the road, I felt the vehicle shudder as one of the rear wheels buckled and grated against the asphalt.

_Great. I’d blown the tire._

I turned off the engine, and slumped against the steering wheel. The haunting, lonely note of the horn went off, but I couldn’t even bring myself to lift off the wheel to stop it.

It rang out onto the empty road. Probably startled some rogue corn spirit, but other than that, I doubt anyone had heard it.

With a sigh, I grabbed my phone and opened my door. I walked to the hood of the car, turning on the flashlight on my phone. When I pulled the hood up, the smoke got in my eyes and throat, making me cough. But when that mostly cleared, I couldn’t make sense of what was wrong, so I slammed it back down in annoyance.

Then I walked to the rear of the car where, yep, sure enough, I’d blown the back tire somehow. I checked the trunk for a spare, but how lucky am I? There wasn’t one. Who could’ve guessed?

I sighed, shutting the trunk and leaning against it as I stared down the vast empty highway.

I hadn’t passed anyone, and hadn’t seen a single other headlight on the road since I’d left the airport. No one was coming to my rescue, that much was clear to me.

Lifting my phone, my brows furrowed. One bar. No, wait – maybe _two_ , if I held my phone up high enough. I looked around again with a sigh. I couldn’t remember how far the last sign had said the next town was from here. I’d be sleeping in the car.

I drafted a message to my boss explaining my situation so that hopefully I didn’t wake up in the morning and find myself out of a job. Then I drafted a message to Cecelia so that at least someone else knew what was happening with me. Then I managed to climb onto the roof of my car, holding up my phone high enough to reach that second bar.

Then – more luck struck my way – my phone ran out of battery after the messages sent. With a sigh, I got down and hunkered down in my car. I got into the backseat so that I could at least lie down.

It wasn’t anywhere near comfortable, but had I really expected it to be? With a sigh, I rolled onto my side, my hand under my head as a makeshift pillow.

Sleep evaded me. I was too hyped up. My brain was way too active. I needed to relax way the hell down if I wanted to get even a wink of sleep. I smirked to myself as I thought of a way that had proved very effective in the past.

And something that I’d packed just for the occasion. Okay, well maybe not specifically for _this_ occasion, but I’d definitely packed it because I’d known that I’d get bored sitting in a hotel for a week.

Rolling over, I dug through my luggage to find my _SKYN Vibes personal massager_ – aka, my very trusty lilac vibrator. It was very versatile – flexible with a range of different settings, and even a little finger for dual stimulation.

With a slow exhale, I rushed myself out of my clothes and lay back down. With one leg over the back of the seat and one resting on the floor, I opened myself up with my fingers and turned on my device to the lowest setting.

The hum and reverberation that I could hear and feel already had me giving myself a small smile. I inclined my head a little with a smile, my eyes falling closed as I let my fingers do the searching.

My lips parted when I slid the toy slowly inside myself, shuddering at the slow vibrations that pressed through my folds and to my core. To my center.

I let out a low sigh of appreciation as I started to press slow thrusts into myself. The little finger wagged across my clit, and after all the stress of the day, I felt I deserved this.

I could feel the moment that my body started to relax, so I increased the setting, up to the highest. I wasn’t mucking around here. I wanted this release, and I wanted it now.

With my eyes squeezed shut, I let out a low hum of pleasure as my body started to crescendo. That awesome feeling of standing on the precipice and waiting for your body to give in – I was riding high on that feeling.

So, as I ground my core against the toy, I finally felt myself give way. With a long, slow moan of delight, I felt my release crash over me like a wave hitting the sand in a storm.

“Yes,” I whispered to myself as the muscles in my arms strained to hold the toy _right_ against my clit and my g-spot. My nipples were pointed like knives in the air as my back arched into my release.

And then my luck for the day just had to bite me in the ass.

I yelped as a sound reverberated through the car. Realizing it was a knock at the window, I sat up faster than a bull is released from the gates in Pamplona. I jumped to cover myself up hurriedly, but in my haste my vibrator fell to the floor of the car and rolled under a seat where I couldn’t reach it. The buzzing seemed to intensify as it rested against the metal clips that held the seat to the floor.

Mortified, I mentally slapped myself.

Then with a stricken gaze, I looked towards the window, locking eyes for a split second with the man standing at my car window. I could barely see him in the dark, but his eyes were bright. He cast his gaze away almost immediately, avoiding looking at me, though I noticed a wayward smirk on his lips.

Getting myself sorted and throwing at least my shirt back over my head to cover my chest, I crossed my legs. The vibrator beneath the seat continued, echoing like it was determined to be my funeral march. It may as well have been, seeing as this particular event would be my last. This was too embarrassing to come back from.

I rolled down the window manually.

The man took a step back from the car door to give me space, and ultimately giving me the chance to take a better look at him. He was illuminated by the headlights of his truck, which I realized had pulled up behind me.

How I hadn’t noticed the bright lights before was beyond me, but then again, there wasn’t much I could have noticed while in the throes of my orgasm. An orgasm, which I might add, that was cut unfairly short.

Watching the man, he didn’t seem threatening. He had dark hair and skin, and probably dark eyes if I were to look close enough. What I had previously thought were bright were probably just the reflection from his truck headlights. He was beautiful, in an understated kind of way. Like he had no idea.

He was about my age – late 20s – or possibly a little older. He was fit, with broad shoulders – I wasn’t even going to address how attractive that was to me. He was wearing a khaki button-down shirt – as if he were best friends with Steve Irwin – dark wash jeans that were covered in long ago dried mud, and leather boots that I assumed were for riding horses. Or for something else farming or crop related. We _were_ in Kansas after all.

My current situation felt even more dangerous if I was this attracted to him. That didn’t bode well for me, especially seeing the situation he’d caught me in.

Before I could say anything, I watched the wry smirk on his full lips quirk in the corner as he rose an eyebrow. He still wasn’t watching me, instead choosing to give me a modicum of privacy as he looked out and down the once deserted road.

So, he was a gentleman too, then? At least as much as one could be right now.

"Do you often find yourself in this position?” he asked, his voice deep. “Specifically one that would scar any passer-by?"

Guess not. The asshole couldn’t help but poke fun at me. _Why did that turn me on even more?_ Life wasn’t fair.

I glared at him through the window as I tried to cover myself up with the business suit jacket I’d worn on the plane. It was too short and wasn’t doing a great job.

I felt like huffing at him. This was mortifying.

"Well _excuse me_ for entertaining myself on this barren road..." More like _deserted_. The barren road that no one had driven down in the last two hours. What else had I been supposed to do? I was prepared to sleep in the car all night. Not like I’d thought anyone would be coming to my rescue, much less interrupting my… _intimate_ alone time.

I cringed at the noise of my vibrator still going strong underneath my seat. There was no way he _couldn’t_ hear it.

The man took a peek in my direction, and seeing that I was presenting a modicum of decency, turned his body in my direction. He regarded me with the dip of his eyebrow for a moment, before his lip quirked up. "You know, you could be a great contender for _'Naked and Afraid'_."

I rolled my eyes. "Except I'm neither." The man rose an eyebrow at me with a smile, eyeing my various stages of undress, to which I could do nothing but huff. _How did I always find myself in such compromising situations?_ I blamed my libido.

I wasn’t even going to get into the nudie run of ’15. The police report was embarrassing enough. But then again, it had been college, and I hadn’t been the only one. I was just the only one who’d been caught and dragged down to the station for public indecency.

The University had never forgiven me. And I’d been banned from all their sporting games for the next ten years as punishment.

What am I saying? I said I wouldn’t go into it! That’s all a story for another day.

“So, what’s wrong with your car? Why are you stuck on the side of the road?”

I sighed, shrugging. The only way to get over this embarrassing misadventure was to ignore it, apparently. Hopefully this helpful man who had pulled over to find out what was wrong with me, would also let it go. “Honestly, I’m not sure. I know I blew a tire.”

“Why didn’t you just swap it for the spare?”

I glared at him. _Did he seriously think I hadn’t checked for that?_ How useless did he think I was? Just because he’d caught me trying to make the best of a bad situation.

“No spare. Even if there was, there’s no jack. Something in the engine also started making this horrid noise and smoking, so I decided it was better to at least wait until morning to check it out. Or flag down the first person I came across.”

The man smirked, his – deep brown – eyes light with amusement. “And how well was that working for you?”

I rolled my eyes at his smirk. It transformed his face in a way I couldn’t explain. He huffed a small laugh to himself before nodding once. Then he took a step forward and extended his hand through the window, a gesture I should have found invasive in my current state.

“James,” he introduced himself. Daintily, and with as much dignity I could muster, I shook his hand.

“Yvonne.”

James nodded, his curled hair catching my eye. It wasn’t too long, but enough to require some maintenance. And it was _curly._ This man would be the death of me and he could never know it.

“Mind if I take a look under the hood?”

_I’d love for you to take a look under my hood…_

Stop it, Yvie! I chided myself. This was exactly the situation I was trying to avoid. The buzzing of my vibrator beneath the seat, however, was giving my horny brain other ideas.

I shrugged, motioning for him to go ahead. He nodded. As soon as he moved away from the car window and around to the front of the car, I dove beneath the seat, reaching desperately for my stupid vibrator, the one that wouldn’t shut the fuck up and was responsible for the healthy blush resting on my cheeks.

 _Of course_ this would happen to me. And _of course_ the guy who caught me just had to be extremely my type.

I was living a nightmare.

Hurriedly, I shoved my underwear up my legs before wiggling into the smart pencil skirt I’d been wearing before. Then, getting myself out of the car, I moved to tuck the shirt into the skirt. The ground was cold beneath my feet.

It occurred to me as I shut the car door behind me that I should probably be more afraid right now. And if I were that kind of person, I probably would have been more wary of James the sexy man who’d pulled over to help me.

I mean, who drove down lonely roads at midnight offering to help strangers. Serial killers, that’s who.

But, I couldn’t find it in me right now to care. Something told me that he wasn’t like that. I didn’t know what it was about him, but I didn’t feel like I was in any danger.

Looking back at his truck, I realized it was old and worn down, like that of someone who worked on a farm. I guess his attire matched the vehicle. I jumped slightly when he slammed the hood of the car shut.

He looked up at me apologetically.

“I have to admit, I’m not the most proficient with engines. I can’t tell what’s wrong with it in the dark,” he admitted. “But, I’d be happy to call the local mechanic in the morning for help…?”

I smiled, hugging my chest as a wayward breeze filtered past me.

“Oh, uhm, thanks. That’s really not necessary though.”

He nodded. “And I’d be happy to give you a ride to town. It’s not far…?”

I waved him off. “No, really, that’s okay…”

James the sexy roadside assistance man rose a perfectly arched eyebrow at me. “I know I phrased it like a question, but it really wasn’t.” He looked me up and down before giving me a smile. “You don’t exactly look like you’re from around here. I’d like to help.”

I narrowed my eyes at him with a smile. “Why? What’s in it for you, Cowboy?”

James chuckled. “Nothing. I just like to help out people where I can. And right now, it wouldn’t be right to let you sleep beside a busy road.”

“You call this busy?” I grinned. James gave a silent laugh.

“Maybe not to you city folk,” he grinned. “But two cars in one night on _this_ road is this place’s equivalent of a traffic jam on Christmas Day.”

I laughed.

“I understand if you’re apprehensive,” he nodded. “But, I’ve got a spare room and a warm shower with your name on it, if you’d like. Sure beats trying to flag down a stray car on a service road.”

I bit my lip. “Wait, this is a service road?”

James nodded. “Yeah. I figured you were lost,” he nodded. “Didn’t know what you were doing so far from the highway in the first place. Only place that this road leads to is the small town where I live.”

I gave a harsh glare to the car. “Fuck you, Siri, you lying bitch,” I muttered under my breath. James heard me and laughed.

“So, what do you say?” he asked, opening his arm up and gesturing to his truck.

I bit my lip. “I don’t know,” I mused. “How do I know you’re not the handsome charming serial killer type, like Ted Bundy?”

James gave me a grin. “I can assure you I’m not,” he said. “I’m just a local cattle rancher. I don’t have the time to go around slaughtering sarcastic beauties like yourself. Well, that, and I couldn’t bear to leave my kid to go on so many dates.”

My eyebrow rose. “You have a kid?”

“A son,” James nodded. He pulled out his wallet to show me a photo of a beautiful brown skinned toddler with a mess of curly dark hair.

“He’s adorable,” I swooned. Those little rosy cheeks made my uterus yearn in ways I couldn’t afford.

James grinned, shoving his wallet back into his pocket. “Yeah. Don’t say that to his face, though. He’s too shy to be fending off women like yourself just yet.” I smiled. Two compliments. I liked this guy.

“Alright,” I conceded. “I’ll go with you. You had me at warm shower anyway.”

James chuckled. “I figured as much. Can I get your bags for you?”

I waved him off. “No, that’s okay, I’ve got it.”

I moved to the car and got my things out, not forgetting my boss’s briefcase. Then I locked the car and pocketed the keys. James led me over to the tray of his truck, where I was able to place my luggage and he strapped it down.

“You know, Ted Bundy had a kid,” I pointed out with a smirk as he walked me to my door. James rolled his eyes.

“His _girlfriend_ had a kid. It’s not the same.”

My eyebrows furrowed. “You sure do seem to know a lot about Ted Bundy…”

James sighed, but he noted the hint of a smirk on my lips and rolled his eyes again. “Well, my offer expires in exactly ten seconds. And to sway your decision, I may or may not also have some leftover bunt cake in my kitchen.”

“Delicious bribes, hmm,” I mused. “Well done. Do you use that one on your kid, too?”

James grinned, shaking his head once. “Don’t have to. He doesn’t liken me to a notorious killer.”

I chuckled and nodded, getting up into the passenger seat of the deliciously charming stranger. I watched through the windshield as he made his way around to the driver’s seat.

Then, with a smile, we were off down the road and I was left to contemplate just what I’d gotten myself into.

.

**So… what do we think of James? Anyone remember Yvonne from anywhere?**

**I’m really gonna like this story ;)**


	3. Two: In Which She Is Barged In On

**TWO: In Which She Is Barged In On**

**Yvonne**

_And there he'd lain, as beautiful and entrancing as the day I'd first seen him from across the campus quad. Just a naive freshman I'd been, curious to his few more measly years of experience yet I didn't give a shit._

_I’d been captivated with the way he moved across the basketball court with his friends. He was fluid, like a dancer, but also somehow not. He was just graceful and powerful and so sure of himself._

_He made every shot he took with ease. Like it wasn’t even a question. Like he was only showcasing a sliver of his real talents._

_The strength I could see in him made me want him all to myself. And then his eyes had caught mine and I’d melted into the floor. That wide smile and those bright teeth had pierced through me like a bullet._

_I barely remembered the night that followed the day I’d met him, but I knew it was everything I’d ever thought I wanted._

He _was everything I’d ever thought I wanted._

 _He was strong and powerful and_ mine _. He was fun and surprising and new and so different from the life I’d known. And he’d loved me. A feeling so foreign yet so comfortable that I’d embraced it without a second thought._

 _I'd have followed those brown eyes across the globe if I was given the chance. I’d have given him everything. I_ did _give him everything. And now those bewitching brown eyes lay open and warm to me in the dim light of my bedside lamp at midnight. The held my attention like the bright moon in a starry night sky. With his legs tangled with mine beneath the sheets, there wasn't anywhere I'd rather have been._

_His dreads had long ago been freed from the hair tie that had shackled them and now spread across the pillow like ink seeping from a broken pen nib. His fingers danced lightly across my skin beneath the covers, leaving a fiery trail everywhere he touched._

_A soft giggle could be heard escaping through my small dorm window, floating upwards like the lilt of a small happy child. A laugh that told a story I'd long ago forgotten._

_His dark skin was smooth like a freshly ironed linen bedsheet, and his shadow blended onto the pillow beneath him as he watched me with those mesmerizing eyes. His lips were making out words I couldn't decipher._

_A memory or a dream I was unsure. But, I knew at some point I'd understood his words. I'd understood them because I'd been captivated by his voice and his tales of travels. Excited by his stories of the city bearing his own name, the city he'd hoped to one day call his home._

_His lips were making out the words of a life that was once my own. Something that now seemed so faraway._ He _seemed so faraway._

_I could understand one word, though. Just the one. While I couldn’t hear it, I recognized the shapes of his lips as he spoke._

Yvie. _My beautiful Angel, he’d said._

_How many times had I heard him profess the same thing? How many times had I felt him crush me close as he’d whispered in my ear that he treasured me more than anything else that touched the earth?_

_How many times had he called me his Angel, like I’d been made just for him? Like I’d been sent from Heaven and floated down for our paths to meet at the exact right moment._

_How many times had I believed those words he’d spoken?_

Too many to count.

_Because that’s just how he made me feel. He made me forget everything else when he was in the room._

_Even now, I could feel the light caress of his fingers across my face and felt myself sigh with the happy exhaustion of the night's activities. My body spent in a way only one type of exercise could achieve. My whole instrument played expertly by the best musician I'd ever bedded._

_My skin tingled where his touch lingered. Alien and familiar at the same time. Confusing and curious and exciting and new and old and all-encompassing of a life I'd long ago left behind. A chapter I’d long ago finished and moved on from, onto the next. This man was a memory, and yet still influenced so much of me._

_I had changed because of what had happened. He had changed me. We had changed each other. But, now he was changing too._

_With shorter hair and eyes that seemed even darker. With higher cheekbones and a touch deeper voice. With some kind of aura that pulled me in, this man had changed and was now new. I knew this man. I knew his name._

_John? Jared? Jeremy? Jack?_

_Whoever he was, he was different than my past. But was different better? Not necessarily. Only time could possibly tell._

_And whatever was blaring sure wasn't helping me remember him..._

.

I’d never sat up faster in my life.

Squinting into the bright light of the morning, my brows furrowed. _Where the hell was I?_

The bed was comfortable and warm, but definitely wasn’t my own. The room was large, with old dark stained wood furnishings. There was a dresser against the opposite wall of the bed, with a mirror on top of it, allowing me to see my own reflection.

I tried not to cringe at the awkward lumps of my hair that were sticking up in all directions.

_And what the hell was that incessant noise?_

Squinting around the room, I realized that my phone was ringing to the tune of Sir Mix-A-Lot’s _Baby Got Back_ , aka, my sister Cece’s personalized ringtone. Don’t look at me, Cecelia was the one who changed the ringtone to that herself. She was the one who could perfectly rap the whole song, not me.

Hurriedly, I reached over to the nightstand to take the phone off charge and answer it.

_“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for hours?”_

I rolled my eyes as I stretched.

“Wow, hi, Cecelia. Good morning. Nice to talk to you, too.”

 _“Sorry. Hi,”_ she said reluctantly, sighing. _“But seriously, where are you? Last message I got, you were stranded on the side of the road in the middle of fucking nowhere. I was afraid some random had come and murdered you in your sleep.”_

I pulled the covers from my body and walked around the room, towards the window. Everything about last night was starting to come back to me.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m fine. I got a ride into town with this really nice stranger and I–”

 _“You WHAT!?”_ I had to hold the phone away from my face to stop her screeching from busting my eardrum.

I pulled back the curtain and looked out the window. I didn’t know what I’d expected, but it definitely wasn’t the shirtless image of my night’s savior as he hauled hay and animal feed throughout the casual farm section of his ranch. Behind him were what seemed like an endless landscape of paddocks and farm land, dotted with cattle and horses here and there.

A dirt and rust colored farm dog trotted around the man’s feet as he pottered around the farm.

I rolled my eyes, forcing myself to look away from his obviously jacked body. “Chill. It’s not a big deal.”

_“Are you fucking kidding me? Do you not know anything about stranger danger?”_

“Yes, I do. I just so happen to also be an adult who can make informed decisions for myself. Look, he was the only person I’d seen on the road in hours–”

_“HE!?”_

“Yes, _he_ , Cece. Men do make up half of the population, this really shouldn’t be a surprising factor. Now stop interrupting. Anyway, he was the first person to drive down the road in hours. He offered to check out my car and then offered me a ride to town when he couldn’t fix the engine himself. I only said yes after finding out that he’s a devoted father to a little boy. He’s offered to take me into the town mechanic this morning to get the car fixed up.”

My sister was silent on the other end of the line. I sighed.

“Cece, come on, don’t be such a Debbie Downer. I really had no other option, and besides, trust me that he’s a nice guy.”

 _“So was Ted Bundy,”_ she muttered. I chuckled.

“Funny. We both made that comparison last night, too.” Cecelia scoffed disapprovingly on the other end of the line and I could practically hear the way her eyes rolled.

 _“Alright, well fine. I’m glad you’re alive, then, at least. I’ve got to get into work, so I gotta go. I have a PT client scheduled in about twenty minutes._ Please _call me when you know what’s happening with the car and that you’re getting yourself out and staying on your own.”_

I nodded. “Will do, Cece. Thanks for checking in.”

_“No probl– Wait! What about work? What are you gonna do about Banks?”_

I threw my head back, my fist clenching as I groaned. _Fuck_ , I’d forgotten all about that. I was sure that as soon as I’d ended this call, I’d have a bunch of missed calls and texts and unread emails from both the office and from Myron Banks himself.

I found myself suddenly praying that the clerk at the airport who’d given me that crapheap of a car would wind up in Hell. Yes, yes, I know that it was my fault for taking the faulty car, too, but still…

“Shit, I don’t know,” I sighed. “Guess I’ll field calls from work all morning in between the spotty service here. Wish me luck. Hopefully everything will be fine if I explain it all right. Worst case scenario, Banks will have to accept the faxed version of his data.”

_“You sure it’s a good idea to play with that kind of fire? You know how quick his temperament can change…”_

I sighed. “Yeah, I know. But, it’s not like I have much of a choice in it. It is what it is.”

 _“Okay,”_ Cecelia agreed. _“Well, good luck with it then. Tell me how it goes at the mechanic. I’ll light a candle for you at work to pray for everything to work out right.”_

I rolled my eyes at that but nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Cece.” I wasn’t necessarily a big believer in the whole holistic approach to religion, actually, I wasn’t all that sold on the idea of organized religion in the first place. But, I had long ago given up on that conversation with my sister. It wasn’t like her beliefs affected me, and if she was happy, then I was happy.

With that, she sent a few kisses through the phone and hung up. I sighed as I scrolled through the notifications on my phone. Sure enough, I’d been right about all the notices and messages from work.

I was screwed if they didn’t believe what had happened to me. I sent a few quick replies to work and to Banks briefly explaining my situation, but I didn’t expect that many would be answered. It was a Saturday, so there wasn’t anyone in the office anyway to run through the tasks I was supposed to do myself.

Myron Banks on the other hand would be a different story. I had no idea how he’d react to this hiccup.

Deciding to put it out of my mind for now, I walked over to the suitcase that I’d placed against the dresser before going to bed last night. Or more accurately, this morning.

I reefed through it, coming up with a few items of clothing before I walked to the door. I remembered that I was on the top floor of the two story house. It was built almost like a plantation style home only smaller, and the upkeep on the outside had some things to be desired. Either way, I found the bathroom that James had pointed out to me when he’d shown me the spare room.

I was glad to get under the warm water and wash away the discomfort of last night, trying too hard to forget the exact position that such a beautiful man had come across me in. I was glad I hadn’t mentioned any of that to Cecelia over the phone. She’d probably have had a coronary at the mere thought of it.

About five minutes into my shower and washing my hair with the limited travel toiletries I brought with me, I just about had a heart attack.

You see, the shower itself was only walled off from the floor and rest of the bathroom by a half wall sheet of glass, and I was _very_ naked. And the door to the bathroom opened up to see right into the shower as soon as you walked in.

And that is exactly what happened.

I screeched as the door opened inwards and James took a step inside, eyes on the floor.

He looked up instantly at my screech and through the fog of the glass I could see his eyes widen.

“Oh, my god, Yvonne! I’m so so sorry, I’d forgotten you were here!” He cast his eyes away from me. His hand still on the doorknob. “Shit,” he muttered. “I’m so sorry, I’ll let you finish.”

I didn’t even get the chance to say anything else as he shut the door behind him and left me to my business. My cheeks were flaming but my eyes were bright with laughter. It took me a second, but then I was full on at the point of laughter that I was bent over within the shower.

This just couldn’t be real. That was entirely too unheard of and too awkward that I felt like Ashton should have been jumping out from somewhere to tell me I’d just been punked.

James had looked like a deer in fucking headlights. How the hell was I supposed to face him now? Especially without just laughing at the poor man.

So that’s twice now that this man has seen me in varying stages of nude. In less than twenty-four hours. A new personal record, but not necessarily one I was happy with. If someone was going to see me naked so often, I’d really prefer they be a sexual partner.

This was only slightly more embarrassing. And so fucking funny when it shouldn’t have been.

Still giggling to myself, I finished washing my hair and got myself dry as quickly as I could. Then getting dressed into a clean, smart navy-blue pantsuit combo that thankfully hadn’t been crushed in my suitcase, I made my way back out of the bathroom. James was waiting outside, leaning sheepishly against the wall with his hand scratching at the back of his neck and a healthy blush resting on his cheeks.

He even had the audacity as to be so attractive to shuffle nervously on his feet. He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

That was fine, seeing as I couldn’t stop staring at his naked chest. It was appropriately sweaty from his work this morning, not in a gross way, more just in a way that made him look like a model who’d been oiled up for a photoshoot.

_Yummy._

I couldn’t afford to be thinking of men like him as yummy. Especially not after what had happened the last time.

Men that looked like James were dangerous. The forbidden fruit. A tantalous tease. And definitely had to stay off the menu when it came down to _Yvie’s Favorite Flavors._ I couldn’t afford to fuck up as badly as I had the last time. Not again.

“Uhh, sorry about that,” James muttered, his eyes meeting mine for a moment before flicking away from nerves. “I promise I hadn’t planned to walk in on you like that. I don’t want… I mean I hope that uhh… Please don’t let that change your opinion of me.”

I smiled, surprisingly it was a shy smile. I hugged my toiletries and dirty clothes to my chest as a distraction when I felt a blush rising to my cheeks. The hand scratching at the back of his neck fell to his side and clenched into a fist. My eyes followed it for a moment before flicking back up to meet his.

This time he didn’t look away.

“Of course not,” I smiled, shrugging. “It happens…”

I could see him better in the light of the morning. He was even more attractive than I had thought last night. His brown eyes had little flecks of lighter brown in them. His cheeks and across his nose were littered with a smattering of faded freckles that you could really only notice if you were _really_ looking.

He had a small little scar peeking out from the edge of his left eyebrow. I couldn’t tell if it had come from a long-ago healed piercing or from something else. His top lip was only slightly thinner than his bottom lip, but you could hardly notice it. The tip of his nose dipped down a touch.

It felt nice to find some imperfections in his otherwise flawless appearance. It made him more human. But it also made him even more dangerously beautiful to me. His humanity was what was drawing me in.

Clearing my throat to stop myself from staring, I took a step aside. James nodded once, taking a step past me towards the bathroom.

“Uhh, there’s breakfast downstairs if you’re hungry. I’m sure Harris is already awake and helping himself,” James said, a hand on the door. My eyebrows furrowed for a moment. I was really comprehending what he was saying. My body was still responding to and focusing mainly on my attraction to him.

My brain was screaming _DANGER!_

“Harris?” I asked, my voice feeling foreign to my own ears. James gave me a slight smile, chuckling. God, I hoped I didn’t come across as as dazzled by him as I felt.

“My son,” he nodded. “I told you about him last night.”

The realization blared in my head like a siren and I snapped out of my daze.

“Right, of course. The little curly-haired cutie,” I nodded. James nodded with another chuckle. Then he shut the door behind him, probably to avoid any more of the awkward conversation we’d mainly engaged in so far this encounter.

I shook my head out of it when the door clicked shut. Then I took my things back to my room, mentally berating myself for my behavior. I was in Kansas to do one job. I was not here to be distracted by men of such caliber, no matter how enticing they were.

I resisted the urge to slap myself out of my reverie, and instead straightened up my pantsuit jacket. I ran a hand through my wet hair before I made my way out of the bedroom and downstairs to the kitchen.

The house seemed quiet, but as I made my way through to the small kitchen, I realized I could faintly hear something. As I walked into the kitchen, I was surprised to find a pair of strikingly familiar grey eyes watching the doorway.

I stopped up short as the boy’s eyes were on me.

“Uhh… hello,” I smiled, giving a small wave. The boy didn’t say anything, just watched me curiously. He was a little older than the photo James had shown me last night – maybe five or six.

I tried to ignore the extra pump that my heart gave as he watched me. I bit my lip, unsure of what to say.

“I’m Yvonne. Uhh, or you can call me Yvie if you’d like? You must be Harris,” I smiled. Harris still didn’t say anything, just chewed slowly on his breakfast. He inclined his head slightly and rose an eyebrow at me.

I was taken aback by the amount of sass I felt coming off him from that one movement. Then his eyes flicked to look at something beside me pointedly. I looked over where he had indicated only to find the source of the faint noise I’d heard earlier.

There was a small television there, right in his eyeline, that was playing a bunch of Saturday morning cartoons. My lip quirked up slightly when I recognised the show.

I was quite well versed in weekend cartoons. Cecelia often told me that I was still a child stuck in an adult’s body because I’d never given up the habit even when I was living on my own. In my mind, though, I saw no reason to give up little guilty pleasures like this.

They reminded me of my childhood – the better years, at least.

Harris wasn’t watching me anymore. Instead his eyes were on the small television and whatever invention Doofenshmirtz had cooked up to best Perry the Platypus this week.

 _Funny_ , I thought. _I thought they’d stopped airing_ Phineas and Ferb _years ago. Must be a re-run._

Either way, I could understand the attraction to the show. It was one of my favorites too.

With a small huff of delight, I turned my gaze back towards the young boy and stepped forwards. I eyed the box of cereal on the kitchen island with a little smile.

“Do you mind if I…?” I asked, stopping myself from reaching towards the box. Harris looked up at me for a moment, then seemed to realize what I was talking about. He shrugged once before just pushing the box of _Trix_ across the table to share. He didn’t seem like the kind of kid to say much at all.

At least not to a stranger like me.

I gave him a small smile and accepted the cereal. “My favorite,” I smiled, because it was. I didn’t care how much of a kid it made me, I always had a box of Trix in my apartment in New York for general snacking or a last minute meal. Also, it was the best flavor with cold milk when I had a hangover. Most people liked greasy food for their hangover cure but not me. Pure sugar had always been my go-to.

There’d been a shortage in New York in my area once. I’d gone to seven different bodegas to find a box after one big night out and I was pretty sure I’d called Cece whilst crying and about to give up. She had suggested I by _Cap’n Crunch Berries_ instead because in her eyes they were ‘practically the same thing’.

I was very close to disowning her that day, because _how dare she_ compare the superior _Trix_ to the measly _Cap’n Crunch Berries_. The latter was half full of regular _Cap’n Crunch_ and as if I would want to waste my money on a cereal that was half cardboard. After presenting her with that argument, she urged me to just buy _Cap’n Crunch Oops! All Berries_ , to which I told her it was still not good enough. _Trix_ would always reign supreme.

I was glad this kid had good taste. _Trix_ and _Phineas and Ferb_? I could have adopted him right then and there. I could see us getting on like a house on fire.

It did intrigue me, though, how unfazed the boy seemed by my presence. As I poured myself a bowl of my delicious treat and began eating, I wondered to myself if it were a regular occurrence for strange women to show up at his breakfast table with no explanation.

With my eyes on the television as we ate in comfortable silence, I let my mind wander. Eventually, I realized that I’d already seen this particular episode – the one where Phineas and Ferb create a giant haunted house to scare away Isabella’s case of the hiccups – and I let my eyes wander around the rest of the kitchen.

It connected to a small living room where there seemed to be another, slightly larger television. I wondered briefly why Harris didn’t watch his cartoons from the comfort of the couch.

The house looked like it needed a good deep clean. The general upkeep of the place wasn’t the greatest, and not to say that women should be the sole general manager of house cleanliness, but I found it hard to believe that a woman might live in this place permanently. If it were me, I’d go insane and feel the need to keep everything immaculately tidy.

Harris’ mother didn’t seem to be anywhere around, and James hadn’t said anything about being a _single_ father last night, but a girl could only assume. The home was missing _something_ and I figured that a wife’s presence might possibly be _it_.

I would wait for James to tell me that himself, though.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear…

James walked into the kitchen through the same doorway that I’d appeared through. The giant smile on his lips was reflected in his son’s eyes as they greeted each other for the morning.

“Hi, buddy. Ready?” James grinned as he walked around the kitchen island and pressed a kiss to the top of Harris’ head and then immediately ruffled a hand through the kid’s curly hair.

Harris was too focused on the television to care as he continued to eat. James just grinned. He got himself a bowl and brought another box of cereal from a nearby cupboard. He eyed my own bowl with a sly grin as he poured himself the much more sensible option of _Frosted Flakes_.

I rolled my eyes at him, munching happily on my sugar.

“So, you’ve met Yvonne?” James asked the boy. Harris looked up momentarily from the screen to look in my direction and then once at his father. He nodded in silence. James just rolled his eyes and turned to me.

“Don’t mind him. He gets shy around the pretty girls,” James smirked. If he hadn’t already walked in on me naked this morning, I’d have blushed at the compliment.

Harris looked down at his food, though. “Do not,” he muttered into his breakfast, making me smile slightly. James just chuckled, winking my way, making me grin.

 _Why did this easy breakfast teasing feel so easy to me?_ I could have basked in the glow of the morning forever. This adorable little twosome was the family dynamic I had craved my entire life.

Did I just call James adorable? I guess I did. He was, though. And Harris was undeniably adorable, that was easy to tell. I couldn’t tell if he was blushing from his skin tone alone, but his body language was pointed inwards self consciously.

Like I said – _adorable_.

“Alright, little man,” James said, placing his empty breakfast bowl into the sink. “You ready to hit the road?”

Harris nodded once, handing over his bowl to his father. He was uncharacteristically quiet for such a young kid, I realized. Before I could ask what Harris needed to be ready for, James locked eyes with me.

“You done, too? Or do you need more time to digest all of that sugar?” He smirked my way and I rolled my eyes at his antics. Harris moved from his seat to stand in front of his father. The boy’s head barely caught at his father’s waist.

“No, I’m good,” I waved my hand, letting James take my bowl from in front of me as his other hand absentmindedly stroked through his son’s hair. I’d left all the leftover milk in the bottom of the bowl and I cringed as he tipped it down the sink. Why did the thought of someone handle my extra food always freak me out so much? I’d always put that on the same level as touching wet food in the sink when you’re washing dishes.

I decided to ignore my brain. “Where are we heading?”

James grinned as he knelt down so that he was eye level with the kid. He straightened Harris’ shirt and helped him shoulder a backpack that I hadn’t realized was leant against the island bench.

“You can come with me on the way to drop Harris at school. The mechanic is just down the road from there.”

Right. Mechanic. The whole reason I’d agreed to stay with this attractive man in the first place. Then my eyebrows furrowed as I registered what else he’d said.

“He’s going to school today? On a Saturday?” Was I correct that today was Saturday? Was this town just backwards on what days their kids went to school or was my calendar actually out by a day?

James nodded before I could spiral too far. “Yeah. He spends Saturdays with his Auntie. She’s a teacher at his school and it’s where he likes to spend his free time. They have the only library in the town there, and she doesn’t mind minding him there because she can do other stuff as well. Plus, it gives me some extra time to handle the ranch.”

“Oh, okay…” James stood up as I frowned to myself. Then the words were slipping from my lips before I could stop them. “He doesn’t spend time with his Mom?” I wanted to slap myself for my pure idiocy.

James and Harris both paused in silence, like they were both afraid that the air had just become glass and would shatter at any second. A beat passed. And a second. And a third. And another.

Then finally, James shook his head once.

“She’s not really in the picture, anymore...” His voice was low, guarded. I hated myself for ruining the moment. Harris was biting his bottom lip, his eyebrows furrowed. I hated myself even more for being responsible for marring his cute little face in that way.

A million questions raced through my head. But I couldn’t answer any of them. The number one priority in my mind was getting those god awful expressions off their faces.

James looked pained. Like whatever had happened was something he’d never gotten over. I should have known it was the case, seeing as I was the same with pain like that. The pain in his expression was raw, and like he was nowhere near ready to address that to me, a complete stranger. So, why did it hurt me to see him this way? I’d never been an empath or anything, that was more Cece’s speed.

“ _Shit_ , I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring anything up.”

James gave a shrug, sympathetic as he finally looked me in the eye, as if it weren’t me who’d caused this sudden drop in the mood.

“Not a big deal. No way you could have known.”

He said the words, but they sounded more like a formality. Whatever had happened, there was _history_ there, and I sensed that it very much _was_ a big deal.

“Still, let me make it up to you,” I said, getting out of my seat. “Especially after all the help you’ve given me since last night. You’ve been way more than generous.”

James’ lips lifted into a small smile in the corner and I grinned at his apparent forgiveness. “There’s a small café next door to the mechanic. You can buy me a muffin if you’re feeling the need to repay me.”

I grinned, nodding once. “You got it.”

Harris then made a point of walking out of the kitchen. James smirked and rolled his eyes. “Don’t mind him. He gets impatient to spend time with his Auntie. And he’ll warm up to you, too.”

I smiled, nodding and following him as he walked out of the kitchen. The three of us made our way to the truck. James hoisted his son up into the cab of the truck before making space for me. Then he moved around to his own door when I was seated.

What a gentleman, I smiled to myself. I looked over at Harris was staring intently through the front windshield. If he were any bigger, he’d have fit uncomfortably between James and I.

The ride to the school was short, and silent. When the car was parked, James made a motion for me to stay put before taking his son into the building. They weren’t met by anyone at the front door, Harris just bounded ahead and disappeared inside.

James had chuckled something more about impatience as he’d jumped back up into the truck. The silence then filled the space between us as he drove us towards the mechanic.

I chewed on my lip as I chewed myself out for having made things awkward back at the house. I somehow always seemed to fuck situations up just for being nosy. I hated when I did that.

But the town was small, so I really didn’t have the luxury of time to contemplate my decisions, because we pulled up at the mechanic quick smart. James hopped down from his seat to meet with the man who’d walked from the garage to meet us.

I followed suit, pulling myself out of the truck and walking over to the men.

“Yvonne, this is Morris. He runs the shop out here. I called ahead and explained the situation and he’s happy to help you out as a favor to me,” James smiled when I stood myself beside them.

Morris was a short, rotund man, but he had a cheeky smile in his eyes that made me instantly comfortable around him. He was probably about sixty, if the wisps of white hair in his combover were anything to go by.

“Yeah, no problem, darlin’. We’ll have your wheels squared away no problem,” Morris smiled.

I smiled gratefully. “Really? You don’t mind?”

Morris just smiled. “Not at all, darlin’. Williams here is a good loyal customer so if he says you’re good then you’re good.”

“Well, thankyou so much. I hadn’t expected anything like this to happen in the first place so I’m glad for the help,” I nodded. James caught my eye with a smile.

“Well, I have to get back to the ranch, but Morris can take you out to collect your car with his tow. You remember where it is, right?” James rose an eyebrow as he spoke. I was momentarily distracted by the small scar at his eyebrow as it glinted in the sunlight.

I snapped back to answer him.

“Oh, yeah. Uhhh, sure…” I bit my lip, turning towards Morris. Full out lie from me just there if you hadn’t caught that. James did, and he just chuckled.

“She’s hopeless,” he said, pointing a thumb at me with a laugh. I couldn’t find it in me to be offended because it was true. “The car’s by the side of the road about thirty minutes out, on the old service road past the mill.”

Morris nodded at the instructions as if they were fool proof.

“Fantastic, no problems,” Morris nodded. “Now you get out of here and go deliver this year’s prize winning stud.”

“Yes, sir,” James laughed, giving Morris a mock salute before turning to grin my way. “Morris has my number. Call me if you need any extra help with anything. From what I saw of the engine last night, you won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.”

I grinned. All I’d heard was ‘call me’ like okay, dude. I definitely will.

I smiled. “Thanks again, James.” The man just nodded at me as he started to walk away.

“Wait!” I called out before he reached his car. “What about that muffin I owe you?”

James just smirked, waving me off. “I’ll collect later.” Then he was back in his truck and driving off. I turned back to Morris when James turned a corner out of sight.

“What is that, like, some kind of innuendo?” he asked, grinning. My jaw dropped as my eyes widened with a grin.

“You dirty old man!” I laughed, rolling my eyes. “No! I was supposed to buy him a muffin from some café around here as payback for rescuing me last night.”

Morris just grinned, raising an eyebrow. “Alright, darlin’. Whatever you say. All I knows is there ain’t no café anywhere round this town. Plus I saws the ways he was eyein’ you up. Pretty little city thing. Can’t blame the guy.”

I scoffed, swatting his arms as I laughed. “A change of subject, if you please,” I giggled. Morris grinned, turning towards the garage.

“As the lady requests. What’s say we head out and find this car you abandoned?”

I grinned, nodding as he led the way to his tow truck. My mind was swimming with my own laughter and the connotations of Morris’ words. I couldn’t help the way my eyes darted around the shops aside the garage.

Not a café in sight.

.

**...**


	4. Three: In Which She Makes A LOT Of Calls

**THREE: In Which She Makes A LOT Of Calls**

**Yvonne**

The drive to collect my rental car was more awkward than I’d thought it might be. Then Morris had taken a look under the hood before coming to a similar conclusion as James had only twelve hours prior. I felt a strange sense of deja-vu as he told me the news before he hooked the car up to be towed back to his garage.

Back in the car, I called James on the way back to town. He told me he’d be waiting for me by the time we got back. He was wrong, though. When Morris and I rocked back up at the garage, the only person in sight was a scrawny black kid spray painting a mural on the left wall of the garage.

“Hey! Hey!” Morris yelled out, waving his arm out the open window of the truck. “Thought I told you to cut that shit out!”

Morris swung the truck into an open space near the garage, but when I looked over, there was a grin on his face.

“You know this kid?” I asked, eyeing up the young vandalizer. Morris just shrugged it off.

“Local nuisance…”

He dropped out of the driver’s seat and headed over towards the kid, who was packing up his cans into a little carry case.

“I told you I wanted you to wait ‘til the weekend, Grant,” Morris huffed, waving his arm at the black outlines on the wall of his garage. “It’s s’posed to rain tomorrow, and this’ll’ve been a waste of friggin’ time.”

The kid – Grant – just looked over at Morris with a grin. His curls were peeking out at the edges of his Yankees baseball cap. His little man-bun was curled through the hoop at the back of the hat.

“Sorry, old man. My fingers were itchin’ and I couldn’t wait any longer.” My eyes were drawn down to the kid’s fingers, which were smudged black. My gaze darted back up to his eyes, which were looking at me with a curious lilt of mischief. “Ma’am,” he tipped his cap at me with a wink and a chuckle after looking me up and down before he turned and picked up a skateboard from where it was leant against the garage wall. The sound of the wheels hitting the asphalt grated on my ears in an odd way as I watched him skate off down the street.

Shaking my head, I turned to look back at Morris, who was scratching the back of his head as he looked up at his wall that had become the doodle pad of a teenaged boy.

“So… you know that kid? Was he painting a mural for you? Or is his vandalism just a regular occurrence around here?” I asked.

Morris looked up at me. “Oh…, Grant? Nah, I didn’t pay the boy for shit. Kids’ got skills and ain't got a canvas big enough so he'll tag a spare wall every now and again. Comes back later to take a few pictures before painting back over it for ya. Reckon he's just tryna get his creative juices out. He’ll prob’ly come back tonight and finish whatever this is while the town’s asleep.”

“So… _not_ vandalism then?” I grinned.

Morris laughed, shaking his head. “Nah. He's a good kid. I know his momma.”

Like that explained everything. Well, I guess in a town as small as this, everyone knew everyone. “You say he takes pictures of his artwork? Is he building a portfolio? Like for if he wanted to get into an art school?” I asked. I didn’t know why I was so curious about the kid. Maybe I just didn’t want to resort back to the awkward silence we’d been subjected to in the car ride.

“I'o'know about that,” Morris shrugged. “Don't reckon any fancy art schools is gonna let him in for a bit a street paint. I do knows some of the guys round town have pestered him to tatt em up so maybe he'll go make himself useful at the ink station in town and earn some cash for his work.”

I frowned. “So…, really no one in town has paid him for a mural or anything? You don’t wanna support the kid. Maybe contribute to an art school dream if that was the case?”

Morris just shrugged again. “No point if he's just gonna paint over it, darlin'.”

The man made a fair point. And then he started walking away. He moved back towards his tow truck and started it up, moving it into the garage to deposit my sad sack of a rental vehicle.

I waited patiently as he hoisted the car up so that he could see all underneath the car to fix the broken wheel and a bunch of other things.

“This is going to take quite some time, darlin’,” Morris called over to me. He had the remote for the hoist in his hands, not really looking my way. “If you’ve got that number to call, I would, otherwise you’ll be standing here for days.”

I nodded my head absently then waved my phone in the air. It didn’t matter, Morris wasn’t watching me anyway. “Yeah, I already did. He should be here any minute.”

“Any minute is right,” I heard a deep voice lilt from beside me. I was surprised I hadn’t heard his truck roll up into the parking lot, but James stood at my right, a grin on his lips.

“Oh… hi,” I smiled up at him. Was it possible to forget how attractive someone was in just over an hour being away from them? His lips tugged into a higher grin when his eyes caught mine.

Then he called out. “What’s the diagnosis, Morris?”

“Too soon to tell,” Morris replied. “Gonna need a few hours to check her over, so you can take the lady outta my hair and I’ll call you over when it’s ready. I don’t need no babysitting hoverers.”

James just chuckled, grinning. “Thought as much,” he smiled as he turned to me. “Ready to get out of here for a while? I’ve got some jobs to do back at the ranch that I could use a hand with.”

I groaned mentally. “Really, chores?” Okay so maybe my groan happened out loud too, because James was smirking at me.

“What, you think you get a night at the ranch for free? Nah, girl, you gotta pitch in. I’m no charity case.” James smirked down at me and my lips pulled into a grin. As much as the idea of hauling bales of hay or whatever else down and dirty job he had planned for me to do sounded, I kind of wanted to give him whatever he asked for.

His voice was mesmerizing. And I thought for just a moment that I’d be willing to do just about anything if that voice asked me to.

“Alright,” I conceded, knowing full well that he really hadn’t asked me a question. He knew I’d go with him. _I_ called _him_ after all…

“Thanks Morris,” I called over my shoulder as James put a hand on the small of my back to lead me out to his truck. The old man gave me a wave and a noise of recognition, but his head was buried under the car and while I’d not known the man long but I suspected he wouldn’t come out for hours.

“After you,” James smiled, opening his arm towards the open door of the truck. I smiled.

“Why, thank you, kind sir,” I said, taking his hand and helping myself up into the cab of the truck. James shut the door behind me and I watched as he walked around the front before settling in the driver’s seat.

As soon as the engine started up, ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ by _The Spice Girls_ was in the midst of playing. My jaw dropped with a grin as my eyes snapped to James. The healthy blush on his cheeks told me that he _definitely_ hadn’t meant for me to hear that as he tried hastily to shut off the stereo system. His rapid pushing of buttons only made him raise the volume.

I hid my smile and my laughter behind my hand as he finally was able to turn the song off. He paused for a moment, possibly wondering if that had _really_ just happened.

 _Yes, James. Yes, it did. And I now know that you’re a closeted Spice Girls fan,_ I thought giddily. I would be saving up this little piece of information to use against him at some point, probably. That little earworm was also no doubt going to be stuck in my head the rest of the day.

When James finally locked eyes with me, I didn’t say a word. I just sent a self-assured smirk his way, raising one eyebrow slightly. James rolled his eyes, tearing his gaze with mine and onto the road as he shifted the truck into gear.

“Oh, shut up,” he muttered upon hearing the giggles I’d tried so hard to stifle – read: I did not try very hard at all. I slapped my hand across my grin as my laugh died down.

“So, what kind of manual labor am I about to be subjected to?” I asked, to change the subject and hopefully save this beautiful man some of the tattered remains of his dignity.

James grinned. “Well, I have a heifer who’s a few weeks out from delivering her first calf. The Vet suggests that it’s going to be a boy, so I’m hoping that if everything goes right, he can grow to a prize-winner in a few years.”

“Okay,” I nodded. “So, I’ll be, what? Cleaning out the pen? Refilling her food?”

James nodded, turning down a dirt road. “Yeah, something of the sort. She’s roaming the ranch with the other girls so we’ll be getting the barn ready for the night.”

I grinned, nodding. “Okay, cool. I haven’t spent much time around farm animals. You’ll have to show me the ropes.”

James’ gaze flicked to me momentarily with a wayward smile. I liked the way that his lips stretched so far to accommodate that smile. Like he was used to it. He didn’t care about the smile lines it would give him. Not that his smooth skin would create those lines for years, though.

“Do you breed many prize-winning cows?” I asked. “Morris said something of the sort earlier this morning.”

James nodded. “You’re looking at the best breeder in the state.” I liked the way you could hear the pride edging at his voice. “Exclusively Angus Bulls. I bought this particular heifer at the beginning of the year and I was glad she took to one of my bulls. I’ve got three main males who I breed with, and about fifty females shared between them. Paid a pretty penny for my boys, but it’s been worth it. They’ve all reaped spectacular results with their calves.

“I usually trade off my calves after their first year to widen the breeding circle. Inbreeding the cattle isn’t an uncommon occurrence, but I’ve found that the calves are stronger without it. I have a few ranch-hands from the local high school that help me corral the cattle during mating season so that the inbreeding doesn’t happen with whichever female calves I chose to keep from the previous year. The older females I keep, I usually run them through three or four calves each before trading them off to other ranches because most of the time, my boys won’t sire the same heifer twice. They’re fickle like that.”

I laughed. I had never put much thought into cattle breeding.

“So, what do you do with the cattle after they’ve served their purpose?” I asked. James gave a half shrug.

“My young bulls go to auction for other breeders each year. Those are my prize-winners. I trade off my young girls to a few other breeders across a few states, and they do the same for me. Then my older girls are put up for auction when they’re through with calving with my boys. Because female Angus can have upwards of seven calves in their lifetime, most of the time, they’re bought by other breeders to sire calves with their bulls.

“You get the rare few chosen for their meat, but for the most part, the people at these auctions are in for breeding rather than meat production. They’re far more valuable to produce however many more calves than they are to go straight into the meat line, you know? Two cows are better than one, after all” he said, tipping his head. I nodded. The math made sense.

“So, how many cattle did you say you have?”

“Fifty odd females. Three bulls. The number grows obviously after mating season, but I am looking at expanding over the next few years. I’ve got a few bids in with the land around where I currently am. So I’m hoping to double or possibly even triple what I’ve got going right now.”

I let out a low whistle, to which James just grinned.

“That’s impressive,” I said, turning to look at him properly. His eyes were light with a smile.

“Well… thank you,” he conceded. “I worked hard to get where I am.”

I smiled. I didn’t get to say much else as we pulled up at the ranch. “What time will we go to pick up Harris?” I asked.

James looked over the hood of the truck at me as we walked towards the house. He checked his watch. “It’s only mid-morning,” he shrugged. “Not ‘til much later at least.” I nodded as he headed inside.

James shut the door behind me and we locked eyes for a moment with a smile. Before either of us could say anything, though, my phone began to ring. The interruption was highly unwanted but I sighed, resigning myself to my fate anyway.

I deflated as I pulled my phone out and saw the name of the caller. It was the office. They were no doubt unhappy with my excuses earlier.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “It’s work, I just have to take this. Just excuse me for a second, will you?”

James nodded in understanding and I gave him a slight gesture of thanks before holding the phone to my ear and answering as I walked into the living room for some privacy.

“Hello?”

I paced the living room for the entirety of the phone call as someone from the office – I couldn’t even remember their name – frantically tried to get on the same page with me on _why_ I hadn’t delivered all that data to Myron Banks last night and _why_ he was calling the office in a rage.

I tried as calmly as I could to explain the situation, but nothing really worked to calm the person down. I assumed they were some kind of intern who had been given the worst job. I explained my string of emails that I’d left that morning that explained exactly what to do now that I was unable to fill out my task and deliver those documents to our boss.

The call didn’t last long as the intern went to hunt down all my work and then present it to someone else in the office to oversee. I don’t know, there wasn’t really much else that I could do, so I was forcing myself not to stress about it all too much.

I decided to leave an email to Myron Banks himself – again – explaining the situation and not to blame anyone in the office. This was just bad luck is all. Then for good measure, I decided to call the airline and give them an earful about letting me hire a dodgy rental car. They didn’t need to know that it was really my fault for insisting on it, because even though I had insisted, a car in such bad shape should never have been in their system, let alone in regular circulation.

The customer servicewoman apologized profusely and promised to triple my current flyer points to make up for it, as well as give me a free round trip to anywhere in the U.S. that I might want to travel within the next year. I grinned at that. It was more than generous but I just assumed they were trying to avoid any kind of lawsuit. I was happy with that, though.

By the time I hung up the phone, I was down to thirty percent battery, and an hour and a half had passed. I sighed, running a hand through my hair. My professional pantsuit felt all of a sudden stifling as I walked through the house. James was nowhere to be seen, but there was no way I could stand the Kansas heat in this ridiculous business-casual work attire, so I headed upstairs to change.

Turns out, James had thought of this long before I had, because when I made it up to the guest bedroom where I’d stayed last night, there were a pile of folded clothes sitting at the edge of the bed.

I smiled as I walked over to them. I decided not to wonder why he had women’s clothing lying around and instead just changed into them. It was a simple long sleeved cotton button-up shirt, as well as a pair of denim overalls. They didn’t exactly match but I knew that that wouldn’t matter.

There were also a pair of old boots at the foot of the bed which were in perfectly okay condition – and were clean – so I put them on. I sighed in relief when they were the right size, if not just slightly too large. It didn’t matter. They would do for today.

I grinned as I stood up and admired my new farm girl getup in the mirror by the bathroom. I chuckled slightly. I kind of looked like I fit in. Now all I was missing was a big straw hat and a piece of wheat hanging from my lip.

I giggled to myself at the thought before shaking my head and making my way downstairs. I pulled my dark hair into a loose braid that fell between my shoulder blades when I made it to the foot of the staircase.

Five steps to the back door, I stepped out onto the porch to see James on top of a chestnut horse – and damnit if he didn’t look completely mouth-watering as he commanded the space – rounding up four black calves. There was a larger black cow by a nearby fence, the gate open next to it, that the calves must have escaped from. The cow must have been the nursery mother for the day.

The same rusty farm dog that I’d seen from the window this morning was running circles around the calves, too. Upon the sight of me, though, the dog abandoned his post and came running up to the porch.

It wasn’t aggressive or anything, but it came barreling towards me faster than the speed of light. James locked eyes with me for a moment from his position atop the horse with a slight smile. I couldn’t hear his laughter, but I could feel it as the dog came and settled itself against my lower legs. It put its weight against me, begging to be pet as its head tilted upwards, tongue lolling out the side of its mouth.

The dog’s body shook as it panted breaths but I just smiled, reaching down and earnestly stroking its coat. It seemed to like it, because soon enough, it rolled onto its back, showing me its tummy and squirming as it begged for more pats.

I smiled as I realized it was a girl. Noting the bone shaped tag on the dog collar, I read her name was Stella.

“Hi, Stella girl,” I smiled rubbing her coat and making her back leg do that twitchy thing. “You like that, huh? What if I do it this way? Oh, yes, you’re such a pretty girl,” I mused, switching it up and using two hands to pat her. I could swear the dog was smiling at me as she let out a low happy bark as she lay on her back.

One sharp whistle made her jolt upwards onto her feet. James whistled again, calling for the dog.

“Stella! Get back out here and finish your job!” James laughed. I stood up from my crouch as the farm dog bounded back out to the calves to push them back towards the gate.

“Sorry!” I called out with a wave. James just smiled, waving me off as he got down from his horse to close the gate after the last calf. The three of them and the older momma stood watching with interest from the other side of the fence as I made my way over to them.

I had a hand over my eyes to shield myself from the sun. When I made it to stand beside James, Stella was leaning against my legs again, waiting for me to pet her.

My hand reached down to stroke the top of her head, which she moved to lick twice as I smiled at James.

“Ready to get to work? Now that you’ve stopped distracting my dog?” he grinned.

“Oh, you bet!” I grinned, deciding to ignore his snipe. “I think she likes me more than you, anyway.”

James just scoffed. “Nah, she’s just used to strangers giving her treats so that’s what she’s waiting for from you.”

I grinned, rolling my eyes before following him as he made a ‘this way’ gesture with his arm and I followed him towards one of the largest barns I’d ever seen. He had a hand on the horse’s stirrup, guiding it with us as we made our way inside.

“Alright,” James started, leading the horse into one of the large pens and shutting the door behind it. He turned to me with his hands on his hips like Superman. “There’s a rake over there. We’re starting with removing all the old hay before we replace it with new. We’ve got to hose out all the excrement before we replace the hay, too, but hopefully it’s all in amongst the old hay so that we don’t have to do too much scrubbing. We can take the old stuff out to be dried and pressed and mulched into fertilizer for the yards. Then we’re emptying and refilling water and feeding troughs. And then we’re reorganizing riding equipment on the wall.”

I bit my lip to hide my grimace as I watched him. None of that sounded particularly appealing to me. My nose wrinkled at the smell of the barn’s interior. “Any chance I can go back and hang out with Morris?” I asked hopefully. James just laughed, shaking his head as he went for a rake. He held one up for me and I let out a sigh before taking it.

James showed me to a pen where I got to work. It wasn’t as bad as I’d expected it to be, but it wasn’t exactly what I’d call _fun_ either. In fact, it was actually giving my brain too much room to overthink things. So, instead, I decided to let my mind wander.

The thing that seemed to come to mind after that was the tune that I absentmindedly hummed beneath my breath as I cleared out old hay into a nearby wheelbarrow. Only after a few minutes of humming the same tune did I realize exactly what it was. I grinned to myself. I knew it would be in my head for the rest of the day.

“ _You have got to swing it, shake it, move it, make it, who do you think you aaare_ ,” I sung quietly, grinning like a mad fool. “ _Trust it, use it, prove it, groove it, show me how good you aaare. Swing it, shake it, move it, make it, who do you think you aaare. Trust it, use it, prove it, groove it, show how good you are!_ ”

When I looked up, I realized that the broom in James’ hand had stopped moving as he watched me from the pen across from me, his jaw dropped. I grinned.

“What? You thought you were the only fan of ‘girl power’ back in that truck?” I smirked. James didn’t say anything, just scoffed with wild eyes as he flicked a piece of hay my way. I erupted in giggles.

“For that, you’ll pay. I’ll make you take all this hay outside yourself,” he threatened, but his eyes were smiling. I grinned, shrugging.

“Worth it.” The smirk in my voice made James’ eyes crinkle at the edges adorably. The work took us a few hours. I caught him more than once singing a _Spice Girl_ tune in places where he thought I was out of earshot. It made me smirk every time. He blushed in the moments that he caught me spying on him. His dance to ‘Wannabe’ was killer. Definitely practiced.

The work would have taken us less time, but we kept pulling pranks on each other like we were in middle school.

I hid his rake at one point. He tripped up my wheelbarrow and it went flying, spilling literal shit everywhere. I was drenched with the hose when we were spraying out the pens. I got him back when we refilled the water troughs, drenching him, and then sprinkling a layer of new hay on him when we packed the pens again.

By the time we were finished, we were both in need of a shower. There was a laughter between us as we made our way back up to the house. James shoved my shoulder slightly when we bumped together going up the porch steps.

“Uhh,” he scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “Showers. Ladies first.”

I smiled. “Kind gesture, but it’s really okay. You probably need it more than I do,” I smirked, eyeing up his layer of lookalike chicken feathers. “I’ve got a few calls to make, anyway, so you go.”

James pursed his lips for a moment, raising his eyebrows. “You sure?”

Ever the gentleman… I grinned. “Absolutely.”

James hesitated for another moment before finally nodding and heading inside. I was through the screen door to watch him take the stairs two at a time. I wasn’t ashamed of the way I watched his jeans hug his ass as his legs moved.

Because it was a mighty fine specimen.

I headed for my phone, the one I’d left charging on the kitchen counter before coming outside. I undid the over-the-shoulder buckles of my overalls and let the top piece hang from my waist as I scrolled through my contacts until I came across Morris’ garage number. I tried my best to ignore the niggling guilt that settled inside me at the number of anxious missed texts and emails from my work.

 _One thing at a time, Yvie,_ I told myself. _You can only control so many things._

Morris would be closing up soon, so it was best I called then. He picked up on the fifth ring.

“ _Morris Motors. This is Morris. What can I do ya for?_ ”

I smiled down the line. “Oh, hi. It’s Yvonne from this morning. I’m the woman with the botched rental car? _Please_ tell me you’ve got some good news for me.”

Morris chuckled down the phone. “ _Sorry, darlin’. Wish I could say I did_.”

I groaned outwardly.

“ _I mean, you saw the shape she was in…_ ” Morris trailed off.

I sighed. “Alright. Yeah, I did. Hit me with the damage, boss.”

I listened to Morris take a deep breath in before he started up with his explanation.

“ _Well, putting it lightly, Miss Hopkins. I think that this car should be written off immediately. It’s really an amazing thing that it even made it so far out of the airport in the first place_ ,” Morris said.

I frowned. It couldn’t possibly be that bad. Surely he was just treating it worse than it was to jack up the price for fixing it. “What do you mean?”

“ _Well, in my professional opinion… this car is a crap heap. It’s undriveable, and honestly, I’m not even sure it’s worth fixing the engine. The car overheated because the cooling fans were malfunctioning. There was water in the engine that has bent the piston rods. Then the water got through to the combustion chamber and towards the spark plug. You’ve blown a gasket. The radiator is burnt out. Should I go on? Because this is the tip of the iceberg…_ ”

I frowned, running a hand over my eyes. _Shit._ “Yes, please go on, Morris. I need to know exactly all the damage so I can report it back to the airline.”

“ _Okay…_ ” Morris said unsurely. I could practically envision the old man shaking his head as if I were a lost cause. “ _Your axel is completely bent out of shape and even worn away in some places. Your tires are shot to hell, and that was even before you blew them on the road last night. The timing belt is completely worn through and the starter is completely weak. The rings and the cylinders are damaged beyond repair._

“ _In all honesty, Miss Hopkins, this car should not legally have been allowed onto the road with this much wrong with it. It was just a time game for when it would break down on the side of the road. You’re looking at a complete replacement for most of the things I just listed. And on a car this old, it wouldn’t even be worth it. It would probably be cheaper to scrap it and buy a whole new car_.”

I bit my lip to stop my curses flowing freely. I didn’t understand most of what he had said, but I caught that last part loud and clear.

“Alright,” I sighed. “Well, thank you, Morris. I’ll get in touch with the airline and let them know of your recommendations and see what they can do for me. For now, don’t begin any repairs or anything, I’ll get this sorted out and let you know. Is it still okay to keep the car at the garage or do you need the space?”

Morris laughed down the phone. “ _Nah, darlin’. You can keep it here, that’s fine_.”

I thanked the man profusely.

“ _Alright,_ ” he said. “ _Well, it’s my clock off, so let me know tomorrow what the plan for the shitbox is and we’ll work out a deal. Deal?_ ”

“Deal,” I grinned, before bidding him goodbye and hanging up.

This was a bigger shit show than I could have imagined. I definitely didn’t have the brain power to argue with anyone at the airline tonight, so I decided that it could wait for tomorrow.

It didn’t look like I was going anywhere anytime soon, anyway.

Instead, I decided to give into my guilt and call my office.

“Hi, this is Yvonne Hopkins. Can I speak with Janet, please,” I asked to whichever intern assistant that had answered the phone. I was transferred immediately. Janet was the regional manager for the New York office when Banks was out of town.

It wasn’t rare for her to be at work on a Saturday, but I still felt bad that this time it was basically because of me.

“ _Yvie, talk to me_ ,” she demanded as soon as the line went through. Janet wasn’t often a demanding woman, in fact she was a rather pleasant and happy-go-lucky person, but I could hear the stress of the day in her tone and decided not to actively piss her off.

“Hi, Janet,” I sighed heavily. “Unfortunately, I’ve only got more bad news.”

Janet swore on the other end of the line as I rehashed everything wrong with the car.

“So, yeah, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. However, the place that I’m staying is very accommodating. Their wi-fi connection is great, considering, and if you’re willing, I’d really like to try working remotely for the time being until this shit mess is figured out.”

“ _Yes, I agree that it would be for the best_ ,” Janet nodded. “ _And the Wall Street data that you were sent to deliver?_ ”

I hummed in agreement. “Is being faxed to you at the crack of dawn. I know that it’s not the way that Myron wanted to handle this sensitive information, but right now it seems we have no other choice,” I said. “That is… if you agree?”

“ _Oh, yes of course. I will make sure that Myron understands the circumstances. This is of course not your fault. I hope you’re in contact with the airline about their negligence?_ ”

I nodded. “Oh, absolutely. They’re not getting away with this,” I rolled my eyes.

“ _Alright_ ,” Janet sighed. “ _Well, this is the most we can do about this now, I guess._ ”

I nodded again. “Of course. I’m so sorry for all of this, Janet. Now, go and enjoy a Saturday night with your family. I can organise with one of the interns to come into the office tomorrow to send all my faxes through to Myron.”

Janet sighed tiredly down the line. “ _Of course. Thank you, Yvie_.”

I shrugged. “Nothing to thank me for. Now, go before I call security on you to force you out. You deserve a night off.”

Janet laughed lowly down the line before bidding me goodbye. When I pulled the phone from my ear, I heard keys jingle in the hall behind me. As I turned on my heel expecting James at the foot of the stairs, instead I locked eyes with a tall woman in shock.

She seemed just as taken aback as I did, our mouths gaping open like fish as neither of us could find a word to explain why I was standing wet and sloppily dressed in James’ kitchen while she had a key to let herself in.

 _Shit,_ I thought to myself. _This is gonna be hard to explain._

_._

**Hard to explain indeed? Guesses on who the woman is?**


	5. Four: In Which She Meets The Family

**FOUR: In Which She Meets The Family**

**Yvonne**

The woman was beautiful. Long dark hair with two braids on the sides, looped and pinned around the back where her loose hair fell beneath. She had light brown eyes, like the milky disturbed water of a river or creek. They stared right through me, critical yet curious. Her skin was a light earthy ochre tone, smooth across the apples of her high cheek bones. She was striking.

She didn’t say anything as she kept a hand on the handle of the front door, standing still in place and assessing me in much the same way I’d assessed her. I suddenly felt self-conscious of my disheveled attire and the fact that my hair looked like a rat’s nest, half drenched from cleaning out the barn.

The beautiful woman’s lips parted in mild surprise as she rose an eyebrow when her gaze raised back up to meet my own. I could feel my clothing drip slowly onto the floor and I wanted to melt with it.

Was she the aunt from the school that Harris had spent the day with? James’ sister? I frowned to myself and tried to hide it. She didn’t bear any resemblance to James, so it couldn’t be a sister, could it?

Then my eyes widened minutely with a second realization. Was this James’ wife? _Shit!_ How was I supposed to explain this to her?

Before I could say anything, my eye fell to the shadow behind the woman, just at her waist. Harris looked up at me with wide eyes as he walked through the front door behind the woman.

He regarded my clothing for a moment before looking past me and walking further into the house. He deposited his backpack on the couch before falling into the cushions beside it. He pulled out a book and began reading as if nothing were amiss.

I kicked myself into gear, smoothing out the impossible wrinkles over my front before taking a step forward and extending my hand.

“Uh… hi,” I ventured, locking eyes with the beautiful woman again. “I’m Yvonne Hopkins.”

The woman took my hand and shook it once firmly. Her fingers were long and soft, curling around my hand easily. She seemed a few years older than myself, if my inherent intimidation by her was anything to go by.

“Anya,” she said. “Narvaez.”

I smiled, nodding once. “I know this must be a little confusing to walk in on. I’m so sorry about that but I promise it’s not what you think,” I said. “You see, my car broke down last night and James found me and offered me a place to stay. I’m all wet because I was helping him with some jobs outside to pay him back for having rescued me.”

A nervous laugh filtered through my lips as I shrugged. Anya Narvaez, in all her regal beauty, crossed her arms over her chest with a raise to her brow.

“And what is it exactly, that you thought I’d think of… this?” she asked. My mouth gaped open and I was lost for words. Had I assumed wrong about who she was?

Thankfully, I was rescued by James as he walked down the staircase. I was gifted for a moment with the view of his broad chest before he pulled his t-shirt over his head. I couldn’t even concentrate on the sliver of smooth skin between his shirt and his jeans because I was too busy staring at him with wide eyes, practically begging for his help here.

“Anya,” he smiled when he saw her. That made me frown. Surely if this were his wife, he wouldn’t be so happy to see her and have to explain the dripping wet strange woman in their midst.

Anya turned around to face James, her arms falling uncrossed to her sides. “James,” she nodded. James took a moment to lean over the back of the sofa and press a kiss to Harris’ hair before ruffling it. The boy waved his father off as he tried to concentrate on the story in his lap.

“I thought I was picking him up, but it’s all good. How was he? Behaved, I hope?” James asked. Anya gave a nod.

“Perfectly well behaved, as always. He helped me make up a few posters to decorate the classroom. We’re focusing on weather patterns and climate change this month,” Anya said, smiling fondly down at Harris.

So, she _was_ the Aunt at the school…? I deduced. My head was spinning.

She really didn’t look anything like James. If anything, I’d have said she looked more Latin than she did African-American. It might have been her hair that was making me think so. It was straight with a minor wave to it, thick and falling down her back like a waterfall.

Or maybe it was the slight differences in her nose, and her chin, and the shape of her eyebrows. It was the way her face was slightly longer than his, and the way her lashes seemed darker. She was completely breathtaking in her own way.

“Sorry, I’m being completely rude,” James said, shaking his head as he looked my way. “Yvie, this is Anya. Anya is Harris’ aunt, whom he spent the day with at the school. She is–”

“I’m Sofia’s older sister,” Anya said, cutting James off. My eyebrows furrowed at the slightly ashen look on his face and the way his eyes tightened at the woman’s name.

“Sofia?”

A beat of silence passed between the three of us. My question seemed to hang in the air for a moment. Anya didn’t seem surprised that I did not know of any Sofia. She didn’t seem surprised that James hadn’t mentioned her, nor that he was taking so long to clarify.

“My wife,” James supplied on a suppressed sigh. He met my gaze for just a moment before he tore it away to look sternly in Anya’s direction.

 _Oh!_ That made so much more sense and explained so much more than if she were James’ blood. I mentally slapped myself for not considering it. The sister of the absent wife.

I wondered when exactly I’d get to meet her, and find out exactly what the deal between she and James was. He had said she wasn’t in the picture, but the look on his face when he spoke of her told a different story.

“Uhh… Yvie is from New York,” James supplied to Anya with a smile. The weird tension from the mention of Sofia filtered out of the conversation as James opted for some light teasing. “Made a bad deal and rented the wrong car and got stuck just outside of town.”

I rolled my eyes at his words.

“And you were her rescuer?” Anya rolled her eyes at James with a smile.

James just grinned. “You know I can’t help but pick up the strays,” he said. “How do you think I ended up with Stella?” he grinned, looking pointedly at me. I smiled, feeling my earlier anxiety begin to recede inside me.

Anya turned her head slightly to roll her eyes at me, too, smirking. “He can’t help himself,” she chuckled, her earlier wariness seemingly having faded slightly. She shook her head with the laugh. “He plucked that dog from a cardboard box on the side of the road. She was so dust covered and small that I honestly thought it was a kitten at first.”

A grin spread across my lips at the mere thought of it, and James grinned from where he stood beside Anya, his arms crossed across his new clean t-shirt. I tore my eyes away from his broad chest before I was caught with my eyes gaping hungrily at him.

I couldn’t help it. Everything he’d done the past day had made me very attracted to him. At the mention of the dog, Harris had vacated his seat on the couch and ventured out to the back porch to play with her. James and Anya watched him go with a small smile before they turned back to the conversation.

“Anyway, I’ve offered Yvie the spare room until her car can be fixed,” James nodded. Anya nodded in agreement, too, but there was a tremor of slight concern etched into the pull of her eyebrows.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Anya tried, her eyes flitting to the back door where Harris had disappeared through. Then she turned to me hastily. “Not that I’m saying you’re a horrible person,” she assured me. “But is it such a good idea for Harris?”

James shrugged nonchalantly. “The kid’s fine. He and Yvonne got along this morning, did you not?” he looked at me pointedly and my eyes widened.

“I mean, uh… yeah. We like the same cartoons, so…” I tried joking. Anya wasn’t convinced.

“There’s a motel in town, or she could even stay with me if you’re wanting to provide hospitality…” she tried. James waved her off.

“Are you trying to poach my new ranch-hand?” he grinned at her, raising an eyebrow. The beautiful woman rolled her eyes.

“You know that’s not where I was going with that.”

“Anya, I appreciate the concern, but Harris is not as delicate as you think he is. Plus, I think it’s good to show him that being a good Samaritan every once in a while is good for your soul and for your karma,” he smiled.

“Yes, but–”

“We’ll be fine, Anya,” James cut her off. A little quickly in my opinion. My eyebrows drew together but I decided I’d ask questions about his haste later.

Anya took a long slow breath, her eyes flitting between James and myself, as if trying to determine if something had happened between us… or _might_ happen. I tried to represent as nonchalant a front as James did. She didn’t need to know how much I wanted to jump his bones, not when she was the sister of the woman he used to be with.

After a moment, she sighed, giving a small nod.

“Alright, well, I’ll leave you to it then,” she said. I tried not to feel offended by the new slightly colder edge to her tone. I hoped that my being here wasn’t offending her in any way.

I wasn’t privy to whatever obvious history they had, and I just had to hope that my presence wasn’t making it worse.

“I’ll see Harris on Monday?” she confirmed as she turned for the door. James stepped out of her way and gave her a nod.

“Of course. We could have come to pick him up today, but thanks again for dropping him by the house.”

Anya shrugged, nodding. “It’s no problem. I’ll take all the time I can get with him, anyway.” Anya gave me a nod before stepping out the doorway.

“Drive safely,” James nodded at her. I heard the engine of her car start up and watched James as he waved. The noise of the engine eventually died down and he turned back to me.

Before I could stop myself, I stuck my foot right in my mouth.

“She hated me.”

James’ eyes were light with amusement as he shook his head. “She takes a moment to warm up, it’s true,” he admitted with a chuckle. “But Anya is good people. She’ll come around.”

I could feel my eyebrows creasing with worry as my next words slipped out faster than I could have even tripped over them.

“I didn’t just step into the middle of something big between you two, did I?” I asked, forcing down the urge to bite my lip – nervous habit.

James shook his head assuredly.

“Not at all. Anya can just get a little protective,” he smiled down at me as the door shut behind him. I nodded once, scratching the back of my head.

“Alright, well I’m going to go and clean myself up, then,” I said, motioning to my still drenched clothes and hoping that this was the least awkward option for escaping whatever had just happened here.

James nodded, allowing me to step past him and up the stairs. My shower would hopefully allow me a space to go over every exact thing that had just been said and overanalyze every minute gesture that had taken place between Anya and James.

In college, I had majored in psychology for two years before switching to data analysis and computer science, so I liked to think that I had picked up a few little things about speech patterns and body language. Otherwise my studies would have been pointless.

My shower would give me the alone time to figure out exactly what the hell kind of family dynamic I had found myself thrust into.

.

Dinner with James and Harris was interesting. After a casual afternoon of sitting on the back porch and watching Harris play fetch with Stella, we ate in front of the television. James and I sat at opposite ends of the couch, while Harris was happy with his seat on the floor. It was a simple meal, barbecued sausages and mashed potatoes, green beans and peas.

Harris separated his food in the same way I did, and even ate it in the same order. Slice the sausages into bite-sized pieces, then eat all the peas. Then it was the green beans. Then lastly it was the sausages and potato together, spiking a piece of meat before smearing it with potato. The best way to eat it, in my opinion.

In my mind, it made sense to eat it in that order. The order of what was going to get cold first, so as to make the most of food warmth at the right time, rather than prioritize flavor. Because, after all, what good is flavor and having a bite of everything at once when the too hot meat and potatoes at the beginning will scald your tongue, and the cold green mush of your last few bites will only ruin the meal.

Cece had always called me anal and crazy over my food habits, but to me, it was just good sense. 

James had offered me a beer, to which I’d been more than grateful to take. As we ate, Harris had put on one of David Attenborough’s nature documentaries and the three of us had become mesmerized by Attenborough’s voice and the close-up slow-motion images of the animals.

It was one of the documentaries that focused on the animals and organisms of the north and south poles.

I smiled at the faint grin that lifted onto Harris’ lips at the sight of the baby humpback whales migrating to the south pole. They were my favorite creatures in this documentary, too, because I thought they were the most adorable playing with their mothers, but that wasn’t what made me smile.

Harris was such a quiet and gentle boy, that his mere presence was already making me fond of him, though he hadn’t actually said all that much to me. He had wordlessly offered for me to throw the ball for Stella a few times in the backyard while James had grilled our dinner.

I cursed my uterus for the way it tugged familiarly at my insides. I could not afford to be having baby-fever right now, even though Harris was far from a baby. It didn’t matter. He was exactly the kind of kid that I’d always thought I would have.

Quiet, introspective, kind. The kind of kid who smiled just because the clouds made funny shapes in the sky. I had to force myself to focus on the television instead of staring at the child in order to distract myself.

Harris eventually saved me from me, because he put himself to bed once the documentary finished. James followed him up there soon after to tuck him in. When he arrived back in the living room, the channel had changed to some kind of reality dating show. Like _The Bachelor_ but a hundred times more corny with a much smaller budget.

I wasn’t really paying attention to it much, and I had half a mind to turn it off when James sat back down beside me.

“Has Tracy gone on a date with Todd, yet?” he asked, eyes on the television.

My jaw dropped. “Don’t tell me you watch this show and know all the people’s names,” I grinned. James just chuckled, waving me off.

“No, I was joking. I just made up a few names to see if you’d been paying attention.”

I laughed. “No way, I was focused on my drink. Of which, is now finished.”

James grinned. “Another?” he offered, moving to stand up. I smiled, holding up my empty bottle to him.

“Thank you,” I nodded. “I shouldn’t, but I will. As long as you promise to let me buy a carton to replace the ones I’ve consumed.”

James nodded, chuckling. “You got it, Chief.”

I wasn’t ashamed to admit that I watched his ass in those jeans as he walked to the kitchen. _What?_ I couldn’t help it. Those jeans were tight in all the right places, and he was firm in all the other right places and I was a single woman and _damn it_ , I could stare if I wanted to.

When he returned, he handed my drink to me, but his other hand was empty. “You’re not having another?” I frowned. I curled my legs onto the cushion so that my knees met my chest easily.

James shook his head with a light smile. “Nah. My limit is one,” he said easily. I frowned.

“Oh, well I’ll just have the one, too, then.” I moved to put the unopened drink on the coffee table but James just shook me off.

“No, please. Go ahead. I really don’t mind. I wouldn’t have offered it otherwise.”

I bit my lip but then nodded once. “Okay. What are you trying to get me drunk or something?” I joked. James just chuckled as he watched me uncap the beer easily and take a large swig.

“Not at all. I’m just not one to deny a girl something when she asks for it.”

When I lowered the bottle, his eyes met mine. I wondered if I were imagining the heated look in his eyes as we stared at each other, but that may have just been the alcohol talking.

I chose to ignore my mind when it told me that that was a clear invitation.

 _No, it wasn’t._ I berated myself. _You’re just horny as fuck after seeing him ride that horse today, and after seeing him with his son, and after seeing his shirt stick to his chest after drenching him with the hose, and after–_

I could go on and on about the things he did that made me severely attracted to him. Alas, I did not have the time.

I grinned and shut off the television with the remote, before making myself even more comfortable on the couch as I turned to properly face him.

“So… you think yourself a little bit of a knight in shining armor then, do you?” I grinned, taking a sip of my beer as I changed the course of the conversation. James scoffed, laughing slightly as he scrubbed a hand over his five o-clock shadow.

“And you got this idea from where?”

“Oh, you know. Here and there,” I smiled. “Rescued a damsel in distress. Check.”

James grinned.

“Saves lost puppies on the side of the road. Check. Maintains a clean and orderly pen for a severely pregnant cow. Check.”

James laughed. “Well, that last one is more like protecting an investment in my career, but you’ve got me on the first two, at least.”

I giggled.

“But, seriously. What is it? You like fixing things up?”

James’ eyebrows lifted in mild surprise, as if this weren’t the first time he’d had such a conversation.

“I’ll admit there is a certain satisfaction one gets from fixing things that need fixing,” he admitted. “But that’s not what this is. It’s like I told Anya. I believe in swings and roundabouts and that doing a good thing today might change my luck for the better, tomorrow.”

I smiled. “That’s awfully nice of you. But, you don’t stop to think about the consequences? Like, what if _I’d_ been the serial killer in this scenario and you’d brought me home to live under the same roof as your son…?”

James shrugged. “But, you’re _not_ a serial killer,” he said. “So, problem solved.” I rolled my eyes.

“That’s not an answer.”

James grinned. “No?”

I shook my head.

“Alright. Well, maybe I like to think the best of people. And I like to think that I’m a good judge of character. So, I didn’t need to ask if you were a serial killer last night, because I had already come to the correct conclusion the minute I accidentally looked through your window to see you– …well…” He rose an eyebrow pointedly.

The man had the nerve to blush, which made my jaw drop as I laughed.

I reached over to smack his arm lightly. “You’re terrible,” I chuckled.

James just shrugged. “Hey, you were the one getting your jollies in the middle of nowhere when anyone could have come by you,” he said, raising his arms in defense. I just laughed, rolling my eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Our conversation continued much like that for a few hours. James was easy to talk to and I was finding myself more and more comfortable around him the longer we sat and talked.

I told him about my work, going into a little more detail about what exactly I did for a living, because not many people actually knew what Data Analysts did. It was weird to explain.

Then I told him more about the hoops I’d had to jump through that day to make sure I wasn’t fired over all this rental car mixup, and why it had been so important to deliver that data to my boss in person.

Then he had kindly offered me a space that I could use during the day to conduct my work remotely during the week. I was super grateful for that, because who knew how long I was going to be in town without a car.

He told me more about his work, and his friends in town. One of them owned a bowling alley on their property that he’d built just for himself, but that had slowly over the years become a fully functioning business in the small town, because there wasn’t much else to do if you weren’t farming the land.

Another one of them owned the local grocer in town and was apparently the best at playing Blackjack that James had ever seen.

I told him about my friends in the city and the way that we often spent our Saturday nights barhopping, and that that’s probably what they were doing right that second.

Then I told him about Cece and that she was the only family I had left. I told him that she lived in Philadelphia but I wished that she still lived in New York City so I could be closer to her. I told him about how much I missed her.

He told me about his family and how his parents had been much older than most, and that now they’d moved to Texas to retire and he hadn’t seen them since last Christmas.

He had no siblings.

Then, I bit my lip as I could feel the conversation moving towards one particular question. He seemed to sense it too, because I could see him becoming slightly more closed off.

It was in the way he held himself and turned his body slowly away from me.

I decided to bite the bullet and get it over with.

“And… Sofia?”

James was silent. He squared his jaw and looked at the floor, a low exhale breathing through his nose. My back was rigid against the couch and I knew that my nosiness had just ruined the fun banter we’d had going on.

“It’s uhh… it’s getting late,” he sighed, his voice dejected. He still wasn’t looking at me. I deflated, pursing my lips.

I’d known this would happen, and I still went ahead asking the question anyway. I was an idiot.

Stupid foot in stupid mouth.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice low as I tried to hide the disappointment in it. “Yeah, I should be heading to bed,” I nodded as I lifted myself off the couch.

Without meeting his eyes, I placed my empty bottle on the coffee table and turned and walked towards the stairs. With one hand on the banister, I froze. I turned back to look at James.

He was sitting where I’d left him, and he was staring at the television. His jaw was clenched and his eyes were hard. His lips were pressed into a thin line.

“James…?” I dared venture. After a moment, he turned to look at me. This time I didn’t stop myself from biting my lip. “I’m sorry I asked.” I hoped he could see my sincerity.

He frowned slightly before shaking his head once.

“Don’t be,” he sighed. “ _I’m_ sorry. I just… can’t…”

I nodded once, shrugging in understanding. “I know. I get it.”

Then, I took myself upstairs to the spare bedroom where I shut the door softly behind me. I leant back against the wood paneling for a moment, mentally kicking myself. Then I sighed.

 _What’s done is done_ , I told myself. Then I walked to my suitcase and changed into more comfortable sleepwear before falling into bed. My phone was lit up on the bedside table with a message.

**You still alive? –C**

I rolled my eyes at my sister, grinning as I replied, despite what I’d just walked away from.

**Last I checked. Night x –Y**

**xx –C**

I put my phone down with a small smile and let my head crash to the pillow. I must have been more exhausted from the day than I’d thought, because sleep swallowed me almost instantaneously.

.

**Foot in mouth disease. Anyone else have it, or is it just me and Yvie??**


	6. Five: In Which She Can't Sleep

**FIVE: In Which She Can’t Sleep**

**Yvonne**

_Stepping over discarded clothes in this room wasn’t uncommon. He was often in so much of a rush between basketball practice and trying to make it to class on time, that the idea of tidying up his room had always taken a backseat until the weekend._

_I had never minded much, because only god knows my apartment was the same. But in his frat-house, it seemed even more appropriate._

_Right then, though, it was something that was only adding to my anger and frustration._

_That, and the pacing that he was doing across the other side of the room, visibly fuming. I didn’t know if he was more frustrated with himself than me, but it was the first time I’d seen him like this. Especially over a small little misunderstanding._

_To me, this blowup wasn’t really warranted._

_“I need you to stop being so fucking clingy, Yvie,” he said angrily, his dark eyes shooting to mine, his hair flying in all directions each time he made an abrupt turn._

_“Me?!” I demanded. “How the fuck am I being clingy? We’re not even in a fucking relationship!” If I were a cartoon character, there’d have been steam billowing out my ears._

_This scene was a hundred times different to every other time we’d ever spent together. Even though all our other times together had been wrapped up in either the sheets that were haphazardly made on the bed between us, or the ones on my own mattress in my apartment._

_“Exactly!” he fumed. “I’m not your boyfriend, and you’re not my girlfriend. So, stop trying to make me act like one and do boyfriend shit for you.”_

_My jaw dropped. “Where the fuck is this coming from, Rio?!” I demanded. “I_ know _we’re not dating. I don’t fucking want that either, so don’t put that on me. I have no idea why you’re acting like this just because I declined one ‘wanna hookup’ text.”_

_The man glared at me from across the room, his hands clenching at his sides in fists._

_“I don’t give a fucking shit about that! It’s your reply that’s put you on my shit list,” he spat, his voice guttural. My brows furrowed angrily. My reply text had no reason to warrant such a reaction from him._

_Whatever the fuck else was bothering him, he shouldn’t have been taking it out on me._

_“Well_ excuse me _!” I screeched, waving my hands as my voice dropped to an octave of sarcasm that he wasn’t averse to. “All I said was that I was studying at the library and that_ maybe _you could swing by with dinner if you wanted to hang out. It wasn’t a fucking marriage proposal, Rio!”_

 _“Wasn’t it?” he demanded, eyes not leaving mine as he settled me with a steely glare. “We_ both _agreed that this was a casual thing. Sex and nothing more. I know you girls get ideas swarming in your head about fucking romance and couples but we’re not confusing what this is, Yvonne. I made it clear that I didn’t want a relationship–”_

 _“–So did I!” I cut in, exasperated. “And don’t you dare put this on me when you’re the one who flipped out over a simple suggestion of eating food together. I told you I was down to come and hang out and fuck after I was finished with my essay, and_ god forbid _I might want a bit of energy to actually enjoy that with you, so how was I supposed to know that suggesting a simple fucking meal together would make you flip out like a fucking idiot!”_

 _“That’s not the point, Yvonne,” he glared. “We made it fucking clear that whatever_ this _is,” he said, gesturing between the two of us, “was strictly between the sheets and didn’t leave either this room or yours._ You _are the one who decided to breach that rule and offer up a situation that didn’t involve sex–”_

 _“–But it_ did _, you fucking jackass!” I screeched, my hands gripping at my hair in frustration. “If you hadn’t have lost your shit, then it would have one hundred percent turned into sex! But_ oh no _,” I rolled my eyes, sarcasm dripping from my tongue. “Your stubborn ass decided you couldn’t wait one fucking hour for me to finish my work and instead I have to walk in on you with your tongue shoved down Asteria’s throat in that living room downstairs–”_

_“What, are you jealous?” he demanded, chest heaving. “Is that what this is?”_

_I let out a groan of frustration. “Oh my god, I cannot even have this fucking conversation with you, Rio! No, I wasn’t fucking_ jealous _. I was pissed the hell off because you’ve decided for some reason that whatever we had before is now done, the_ second _you decided to get with Asteria. We made a deal that we wouldn’t fuck around on each other because that shit is messy and I don’t want to catch some fucking disease from whatever girl spreads her legs for you, but over one fucking suggestion of dinner, you’ve decided to throw a shit fit and end this without having the fucking decency of telling me!_

 _“So,_ whatever! _If you want this to be done, then it’s fucking done. Just don’t act like a fucking child about it and try and blame me for it being over when_ you _are the one who overreacted about a_ suggestion _of a meal. It was up to you to just say yes or no to that fucking text, it wasn’t this gigantic ultimatum that you’ve turned this into. If anything, for me, it was a fucking_ friend _doing another fucking_ friend _a fucking_ favor _and bringing them something to eat while they got their essay in at the last minute because they’ve spent every other fucking night this week between said friend’s fucking legs!_

 _“So, get your head out of your fucking ass, unwind your fucking panties and unclench, because it is_ you _that has blown this out of proportion, not me. And whatever the fuck happened today to set you off before that text is on_ you _, and I will not let you fucking blame me for whatever else fucked up your day and made you flip your shit on me.”_

 _I finished my speech and my chest was heaving as I glared at Rio across the room – my now_ ex _-fuck buddy. He glared right back. One of his dreads had escaped his bun and was hanging in front of his eyes, the same dark eyes that were staring straight through me._

_I was beyond pissed off with him, but I was even more pissed off at myself that I couldn’t deny the indisputable clench of my core at seeing him so riled up. Sue me, rough sex had always been a favorite of mine. And him standing across the room, his body tight and coiled from our argument, was setting off all my sex centers._

_I hated that I wanted him more than ever right now. That was so unbelievably unhealthy. But I knew I set him off the same way he did to me._

_It was why I’d agreed to be fuck-buddies with him, because we were too similar for a relationship to ever work, and he wasn’t someone I wanted to be with long term._

_For now, he was a hot body to rile up against my own, and he had a sex drive that matched mine in a way no one ever had before._

_I hated that he could read me like a book, and that through his glare, I could see the lust that was no doubt flashing in my own eyes._

_In two steps, we cross the room to each other and I was thrown down onto his bed. Angry rough sex was on the cards, but I’d meant everything that I’d said. I hadn’t deserved for him to take whatever personal shit he had going on, out on me. I didn’t deserve that, and that was why I knew that while this rough angry sex was going to be great, it was going to be the last time, because I wouldn’t let him continue to treat me like that._

_Our run had been great, but if he couldn’t handle anything with me outside of the bedroom, then I was done with him._

_Those thoughts rattled through my brain as his lips crashed to mine. My hands were in his hair, freeing his locks from his bun and scraping my nails down the back of his neck, making him grunt and shudder into me._

_I didn’t remember him ripping my clothes off, or me his, but we were naked and he was sliding against my skin. His fingers tortured me at my core, foreplay that was completely unnecessary after that bitch fight we’d just had._

_I was more than ready for him, and he could feel it as his fingers were slick with my arousal. The scent of it was thick in the air and my lips parted as his tongue made its way down the column of my throat. When they circled around one nipple, tongue laving over the shiny baubled piercing there, a throaty groan left my mouth, frustrated as my legs tried to wrap around his, demanding he give me what I wanted – needed – after the way he’d treated me tonight._

_When his teeth bit into the soft, sensitive skin on the underside of my breast, I let out a cry, my back arching right into his waiting embrace. His fingers dug into the skin of my lumbar as his mouth crossed the valley of my chest to my other nipple. He teethed at the sensitive skin there, making my body begin to shudder with the need for friction – the need for_ him.

_For as much as he was making me hate him right now, I needed him to finish a job just as much._

_In my head, our whole argument was a crock of horse shit. Of course we weren’t exclusive. No one in our circle of friends was exclusive. It was college, the certified time to be free with our bodies and fuck whoever we pleased because we were young and stupid and had no need to be tied down._

_His accusations that I fantasized of romance were bullshit. Rio Lewis didn’t know shit about me aside from my pleasure centers and where exactly to hit inside me to make me explode against him. He didn’t know my likes or my dislikes, because we’d never needed much conversation to fall in bed with each other._

_He barely knew my major._

_But I had never cared about any of that, because I hadn’t bothered to want to be closer to him than learning surface level information about him. The things that made me attracted to him. His athleticism and his drive. I didn’t care about the rest, because I had never had any desire to be any more intimate with him than our casual sex._

_Well, casual sex that had happened six out of seven nights a week for the last five months of my junior year. I didn’t need to know anything more about him than the sounds he made when he came, and the way he liked to dig his fingers into my supple ass cheeks as he buried himself inside me._

_I let out a frustrated curse when I felt his hardened rod slide against my inner thigh. Two inches from where I needed it most._

_With a hand still pressed over my core, he pinched at my clit twice and flicked it, making my stomach coil in anticipation and my toes curl. Then his lips left the wet trail he’d made from my nipples to my navel as he raised himself off me. Enough time to grab a condom from his top drawer and sheath himself was enough time for him to thrust two fingers inside me and make me cry out._

_The glare in his eyes and the hard set of his jaw as he rolled the rubber over his cock was enough to make me hate him in that moment. And it only made me more aroused._

_The second he was finished, I rolled us over so that I was on top, and without warning, removed his fingers from inside me and slammed down on top of his thick length. He let out a hearty groan, his large hands coming up to grip at my hip bones._

_I rode him like my life depended on it, and I didn’t care about the bite that I felt inside me at the pace, if anything, it egged me on. I wanted to chase the pain that it gave me, because that pinch would only make me feel better when my climax would hit me._

_I lent forward and braced myself against the dark skin that was pulled taught over hard rigid muscle. The angle allowed him more reach to strengthen his thrusts even more. The hard slap of our skin rung in my ears until it was the only thing I focused on._

_That and the harsh breaths and grunts that panted from both our lips. I didn’t look at him. Didn’t look in those brown eyes that I used to fixate on in the throes of orgasm._

_I hated him. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing right through me in my most vulnerable state. But sometimes I thought he knew me better than I knew myself. Or at least, knew my body better than I did._

_He felt me coming to my climax before I did, and rolled us over. He braced himself on the headboard and drove into me as my hands fisted in his sheets. My eyes clenched shut as he hung over me, my jaw wide and slack as I felt my chest begin to tighten._

_I could see my climax in my head. I could see myself chasing it down, climbing higher and higher. I reached out a hand, able to touch the edge of it with my fingertips._

_Rio slammed into me faster than I think he ever had. Distantly, I realized that the bed frame was knocking harshly against the wall. Everyone in his frat house would know what we we’d done. They’d know that we’d both gotten off on the anger and the frustration and the hate that made my skin sizzle, burning bright._

_Not allowing him to get the upper hand, I clenched him inside me, making him curse out a slew of words that would make a sailor proud. Then my neck was arching, my breasts pointed to the sky and a long groan filtering through both our lips as we found our release._

_It crashed over me like sleep – fast and deep. I felt it in the marrow of my bones and he set my skin alight all over until I was afraid that I’d crumble to dust._

_This was what I was giving up. And I found that I was okay with it._

_Then my spine was pressed back into the sheets, falling softly as the pressure and the weight of him on top of me was finally registering. My core quivered and pulsed as I felt my climax ebb slowly from me._

_And in a rare moment, my gaze found his, softening with the coming-downs of our shared orgasmic bliss. An apology was whispered off his lips, swallowed quickly by a tender kiss that I hadn’t been expecting. Even more unexpected, one that_ I _had initiated._

_We stayed there for a moment longer, his lips pressed against mine and his brows furrowed to match my own. Then he pulled away and pulled out. And we weren’t looking at each other as I was pulling on my clothes and getting the hell out of there._

_When my hand was on the door, he called my name in a tender voice I’d never heard from him before. Small and unsure._

_I turned, allowing him a short glance with a blank face. Rio Lewis sighed, still naked as he sat on the edge of the bed, looking at me apologetically._

_He grimaced, as if confused by his own thoughts, before finally he steeled his gaze._

_“I’m sorry,” he repeated. I watched him for a moment. I wasn’t breathing. My lips hardened into a thin line as I allowed him one curt nod, but then I was slamming the door behind me, knowing for damn sure that I wasn’t coming back._

_He could make a hundred apologies, but I wasn’t going to put up with being treated the way he’d treated me. It didn’t matter how good the sex was._

.

The week had been long, but surprisingly, very enjoyable. James had left me be most days so that I could get some work done remotely – which was going fine – and then we’d done the casual dinner in front of the television thing each night.

The enjoyable parts of the week came from the shared glances and the small smiles that lifted lips after being caught staring. I couldn’t hide my attraction towards James, and he wasn’t doing a good job of hiding his towards me either.

I also felt like I was getting a little more friendly with Harris, too. He was closed off and quiet at first, but after he warmed up to me being in his space, he often came and sat near me at the kitchen counter to do homework. He also expected me to join him in the afternoons to throw a ball or a stick for Stella.

I enjoyed his company. He was a sweet kid, and I was starting to see facets of his personality with each moment that he allowed me into his space.

Over the week, I’d gotten into the habit of finishing up my work for the day by the time Harris got home from school. In New York, I never finished a minute before five in the evening – actually, I often stayed in the office into the late hours of the night – but there was something about the freedom of the ranch that made me feel like I didn’t need to spend so much time working.

Then, I would move around the kitchen making myself – and soon, Harris, too – an afternoon snack while he completed his homework. And then he would use those big pleading grey eyes to beckon me out towards Stella.

And then, the three of us – Harris, myself, and Stella – would roam a few paddocks so that Harris could say hello to a few of his favorite cows and chickens and other farm animals for the day, before making it to the back porch to throw Stella’s ball before her supper time.

The afternoons were calm and sunny and quiet, and I liked that it had become somewhat of a routine for Harris and me. The first afternoon had been a little awkward, but I’d pressed him softly for more information about his favorites of the animals, which the little boy had been more than happy to tell me about.

He got the same adorable excited look in his eyes when he spoke of them. The same nervous twitch to his lips that I recognized in his father.

And then those evenings we made it back inside, Harris would wash up and watch cartoons whilst James and I prepared dinner over casual conversation.

I told him more about what I did for work that day, and he kept me updated about his pregnant cow. We shared jokes and smiles that made the room feel comfortably small, with enough space for just the two of us in our bubble.

I tried not to overthink the moments that he had to pass around me, and his fingers would linger at my hip bones. Or when our hands would meet when reaching for the same utensil. The shy smiles that followed after those touches stayed on my mind for the hours that came after dinner.

I wouldn’t last much longer if we kept going down this road.

Everything about him made me attracted to him – his smile, his cologne, his body, his laugh. They reminded me of things that had been missing from my life since Cecelia had moved to Philadelphia and I’d been alone in the massive city that was New York. The casual intimacy and closeness that I so obviously desperately craved.

Which was why when I woke up from that dream on the sixth night I stayed in that house, I was aroused, but for a different man than the one who’d occupied my dream.

Could it even be called a dream if it were more a memory?

I shook it off, trying to ignore the now uncomfortable memory between my legs. In the dark, I found my bedroom door and shuffled from the room.

It was late, long after Harris had gone to bed, and I had deserted the television before James, but as I made my way down the stairs to find a glass of water, I still didn’t expect to see him sitting there.

He stared at the blank television, still enough that I wondered if he had just fallen asleep on the couch in an upright position. I had done it enough times for it to be plausible.

“James,” I decided to whisper. If it had been me sitting there, I’d have jumped in fright at being startled, but James just turned slightly, looking a little dazed in confusion.

“Yvie? What are you doing awake?”

I bit my lip, deciding not to question the dark hollow crescent moons beneath his eyes. I gave a half shrug, crossing my arms over my chest as I shuffled towards him. I was only in a thin tank top and it was slightly more cold downstairs than it had been in my room. I didn’t want to make this exchange awkward – or tempting – by having my stiff nipples on display.

“I, uhh… I just needed a glass of water,” I said, deciding it was better not to describe the nature of my dream and the real reason I’d woken up so flushed and _thirsty_.

James nodded absently, his eyes seeming almost faraway. I jumped into the conversation to hold his concentration.

My eyebrows furrowed with concern.

“What about you?” I asked. “You haven’t gone to bed yet?”

James considered the question for a moment – eyes on mine, unwavering but not totally focused – before huffing out a small laugh. He shook his head. “No. I, uhh… can’t sleep either.”

I frowned, taking a seat next to him.

“Is that normal for you? Like you’re a night owl,” I tried for a joke. It didn’t pick up his mood, he just seemed kind of vacant.

He gave a humorless laugh, his shoulders moving more to give the impression he actually found something funny.

“Normal,” he echoed. Then after a moment, he turned to look at me, a shrug in his shoulders and an expression on his face that told me he’d accepted his fate a long time ago.

“Insomniac,” he told me in a rough voice, low. “I normally take a drive to make myself tired – that’s actually why I was out so late the other night and came across you – but nothing seems to have worked tonight…”

I bit my lip, my hand finding his out of sympathy and squeezing it once.

“Is something on your mind?” I asked, wondering if the plagued look on his face was because of anything in particular.

James gave a sigh. “Nothing… everything,” he shrugged, like it was a subject he’d long ago given up searching for an answer for. I sat with him for a moment, not really knowing how to answer that.

James seemed to drift off, too. Not to sleep, but not exactly within the realm of our conversation anymore. I so desperately wanted to know more, but I didn’t want to push anything and have an awkward reaction like when I’d asked about Sofia.

I nodded once, then patted his hand. Then I stood up to make my way to the kitchen for my drink. James didn’t say anything as I left.

When I returned and was making my way back across the threshold, I didn’t know what it was, but something compelled me to look at him. James was looking back at me.

“You asked me about Sofia,” he said, his voice low, his gaze sad. I frowned, then nodded once.

“Yes, but James I don’t want you to force anything. You can tell me on your own time if tonight isn’t right…”

James sighed, shaking his head once. “No, I was being too sensitive about it before. You’ve noticed she isn’t around,” he said.

I frowned, rooted in place as I gave him one solitary nod.

“She’s dead,” he said in a hollow voice that might have once been full of grief, guilt and regret, but now was just stating facts. Then his eyes were vacant again, filled with the sadness of memory that was all too familiar to me. James wasn’t with me anymore, he was staring off into the distance, overtired and overwhelmed.

I had already assumed a similar fate of James’ wife. It didn’t hurt any less to hear it confirmed, though.

I sighed, nodding once before moving to put my drink down on the coffee-table.

Then, I reached for the blanket that was draped across the back of the couch. Then I gently pressed for James to lie down, he wasn’t concentrating on me anyway. His eyes had drifted half closed, as if his admission had finally allowed him to cross over into the realm of sleep tonight.

When I draped the blanket across his tall figure and stood up, his eyes were fully clothed and his breathing became even. The downturn of his lips hadn’t changed, but the crease of concern between his eyebrows had relaxed to a dull confusion.

I sighed, kneeling down and running a hand through his hair, stroking some sort of comfort into his sleep so that he might stay that way for the remainder of the night.

One last stroke of his hair finally eased his expression to one of relaxed slumber and I forced myself to rise and step away, taking my glass with me back up the stairs. I only allowed myself one look over my shoulder as I turned out the light to the room, swaddling it with the night.

“Sleep well, James,” I whispered, hoping it would be true for him. Because it was hard to see this side of him, desolate and desperate for rest with no way of knowing how to reach it.

I only hoped it could get better for his own sake.

And then I carried myself to bed, too. I wasn’t even confident that James would remember telling me of his wife’s fate.

.

**Poor Sofia.**

**What do we think of Rio? Who is he to Yvie and what role do you think he plays in her story?**


	7. Six: In Which She Comforts Him

**SIX: In Which She Comforts Him**

**Yvonne**

Friday came around faster than I’d been expecting. Work had been a slow week on my end, because there was only so much I could do remotely, so in the end – after a tense video call with Myron Banks himself and Janet who was heading the office in his absence – it was agreed that I would use up my vacation days indefinitely until I could make it back to New York.

I didn’t mind, because I had three years’ worth of vacation that I had yet to use. I’d been saving it for a trip somewhere, but I wasn’t mad that I had to use it for being here in Kansas. James and Harris were more fun to be around than it would be to travel alone somewhere.

So, with my time freed up, James walked into the spare room where I’d been conducting my work. He was covered in filth from the yard and his mouth was pressed into a hard line.

“Hey,” I smiled up at him, closing the lid of my laptop to give him my full attention.

“Hi,” he grinned tiredly. We hadn’t addressed our interaction from the other night, you know, the one where he’d told me he barely slept and that he was a widower.

I wasn’t even sure he really remembered our conversation that night, or that we’d even had one. I wasn’t totally convinced that he remembered he’d told me of Sofia’s fate. He hadn’t made so much as a gesture to indicate such.

“I, um… I hate to ask this of you,” he started, scratching at the base of his neck nervously. “But, would you mind picking Harris up from school today? I think that my cow might be going into premature labor and I can’t really leave her. Normally I’d ask Anya, but Friday is her debate duty day and she won’t be finished until much later…”

The man looked at me hopefully. Sure, my eyebrows were raised to my hairline in surprise, but the grin splitting my lips should have been answer enough.

“Absolutely, I can,” I smiled. “I’d be so happy to. I don’t have any more work to do today,” I shrugged, “And your cow obviously needs you.”

James chuckled, deflating with relief. My brow furrowed.

“What? Did you think I’d say no?” I grinned. “I wouldn’t do that.”

James sighed, smiling sheepishly. “Yeah, sorry. I just wasn’t sure if it were too much to ask.” The man nodded, more to himself than to me and I grinned.

“What time?”

James’ eyes widened as if he hadn’t thought this far into his proposal. He lifted his wrist to check his watch. From the guilty look in his eye, I assumed that meant _‘whoops, yeah, you really need to leave now…’._

I grinned. “No problem. Keys are by the door?”

James sighed, nodding. He looked more tired than ever in that moment as I stood and made to move past him.

“Uh… yes. And you remember the way to the school?” he confirmed. I smiled, patting his shoulder as I moved by him. His deep brown eyes caught mine and I stopped for a moment when he moved to catch my hand in his. I could see his gratitude reflected beneath his exhaustion.

I just gave him a kind smile.

“Have fun being a midwife,” I grinned, lightening the mood, because this really wasn’t a big deal. “Or a doula? A cow-wife?” I grinned, chuckling. It worked, James smirked, nodding once.

Then I was walking from the room, grabbing the keys to his truck and heading out on my way to the elementary school. Even if I hadn’t’ve remembered the way there, it wasn’t too hard to figure it out.

James’ driveway led out onto the main road into town, and from there, it wasn’t hard to navigate. By the time I made it to the school, the children had already been let out of their classrooms to terrorise their parents for the remainder of the day.

In the large group of children being supervised by a teacher, I could spot Harris in the crowd amongst them. The smile on my lips quickly vanished, my eyebrows furrowing when I focused more on the group of kids around him.

As he sat cross legged on the pavement to wait to be picked up, kids pulled at his curly hair and nudged at his backpack like they wanted him to move. I could see them sneering phrases his way that I couldn’t catch.

It wasn’t hard to guess what they were smearing at him. Kids could be mean, picking on any difference to separate someone else from them. And Harris couldn’t look more different to the other kids. He was practically ripe for the picking – or the picking on.

Even without his skin being a different color to the other children, his hair was wilder and coarser, more curly. He was thinner than the other boys, and shorter too. And he was quieter than the others, content to read a book instead of engaging in rough play.

My heart twinged with hurt for him.

Kids could be cruel, and they learnt that kind of thing from their surroundings and the prejudices that spilled from the lips of those who raised them. I frowned, looking at the chaperones to see if they were aware of the blatant bullying happening in their midst.

The teacher couldn’t have turned more a blind eye if they’d tried. I sighed in frustration. I couldn’t get out of the truck yet, because of my place in the pickup line. I rolled down the window, wanting to call out Harris’ name and grab his attention.

Maybe if those other kids could see that an adult was watching them, they’d cut out their behavior. But, rolling down the window just allowed me to hear what they were saying.

“Hey, Ape! Is your bluegum daddy comin’ or is he too busy cleaning out your animal pen to sleep tonight?”

“Hey, Burrhead. Ever heard of a brush? I wonder how many sticks we could shove in his hair until you get to his head.”

“Yeah. Make him look like a hedgehog head.” One of them nudged at Harris, jostling him. The boy kept his eyes on the ground, not giving in to their jibes.

“Hey, Tacohead. Miss Narvaez can’t rescue you today. You gonna cry to her like you did yesterday at recess? You gonna cry?”

The group of kids erupted into laughter but Harris didn’t say anything. _Did Anya know about how these kids were treating her nephew?_ I wondered. _Surely she would have done something about it…?_

“That’s it! You gonna cry? Gonna go home and cry to mommy.”

“Oh, wait! He can’t,” another kid cried, grinning with malice. “His Momma didn’t want nothin’ to do with his Ape head either so she done run off, too!”

I could feel my anger bubbling up in my veins as I listened to them. Even worse when I watched one of the boys toss a rock at Harris. It bounced off his backpack, but I doubted it was the first time it had happened. The kid was just testing the boundary. I had to intervene before he pegged another rock and made contact with Harris’ skin.

I beeped the horn, making every kid in line jump. Harris’ eyes shot up to find the source of the noise. The supervising teacher sent me a disapproving glare because I wasn’t at the front of the line just yet, but I didn’t care. I would have been well in my right mind to send a glare right back at her, because of her negligence, the poor kid was being bullied by racist kids for no reason. Just for being a little different.

I waved at Harris through the open window, trying to muster a smile onto my face. The last thing he needed was to know that I’d heard those other kid’s words. I didn’t want to embarrass him and I needed to pick the right moment to approach that subject. As someone who was bullied by stupid pre-teen girls in middle school, I knew that the worst thing was for an adult to try and prey sympathy for the bullying when in front of others. Especially when in front of the bullies themselves.

That just gave the bullies more license to pick on that person at a later time.

The supervising teacher walked to Harris and escorted him to the truck. I watched the group of racist bullies scatter and quieten, entertaining themselves with other conversation while their teacher was in earshot.

They were smart enough and sneaky enough to avoid this kind of merciless teasing when an adult was around, which meant they’d probably learnt from past repercussions of said bullying, which only made them more creative about their acts instead of stopping them entirely.

When the passenger door to the cab opened and Harris was helped inside, he didn’t say anything to me, but I tried to give him a megawatt smile anyway.

“Hi, buddy,” I grinned. “Sorry it’s me instead of your dad, today. He’s helping that pregnant cow that you guys have at home.”

Harris looked up from his hands at that. His eyes caught mine for a moment and I could see the unshed tears there. Before I could stop my face from morphing into one of sympathy and concern, Harris looked away from me and out the window, shrugging me off and any pity that I could give him for what I’d just witnessed.

As I was putting the truck into gear, I noticed another adult from the corner of my eye. I looked over to the front doorway of the elementary school to see Anya there, a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun as she watched Harris buckle himself into his seat. She must have come outside when she’d heard the car horn, expecting some kind of commotion.

She looked at Harris, frowning at his expression before looking at me. I met her eyes for a moment. I pursed my lips and then her eyes tracked to the other group of children where Harris had just been sitting. I watched her shoulders slump in realization before her gaze was back on mine.

 _So, she did know_ , I frowned, disappointed in her that she hadn’t done more to stop it from happening. How could anyone stand by and watch someone they knew be treated that way? I would never understand it.

She gave me a somber nod, her hands clenched in fists at her sides. Tempted to glare her way for her negligence – like, did she not have a duty of care that applied to kids in need?! – instead I pursed my lips at her before turning my eyes back to the road and pulling away from the curb. My lips stayed pursed the entire way home. I wondered if James was aware that his son’s classmates were picking on him. Surely he wasn’t. I didn’t think James was the kind of person who would sit by and let that happen. If he knew, he’d have done something about it by now.

When we pulled back up at the house, Harris practically bolted from the car. Fast enough that I had to hurry to jump down and run after him. If I knew anything about this situation, I knew that I needed to show him that I was here for him, even if I didn’t use my words to express just that.

I was able to get his attention when I made my way through the front door. He was about to flee upstairs to his bedroom when I caught him at the base of the staircase.

“Harris, wait!” I called out. He stopped in his tracks, looking over his shoulder at me after a moment of pause. I bit my lip.

“What?” he asked meekly, his voice small in the first words he’d spoken to me all afternoon. It hurt me to see him this way, especially abandoning the routine we’d set up with each other over the last week. For someone so young, it was odd to see him carry so much hurt this way.

Most kids his age would probably just act out to being teased and picked on by throwing a tantrum. But Harris was the kind of kid who I knew would hurt and suffer in silence. It was understandable, because he’d been through enough having to grow up for part of his life without his mother.

He was like a little grown up inside a child’s body. Like he didn’t know how to just be a kid. I wanted to change that.

“I, uhm… I wanted your help to make dinner,” I bluffed. I hadn’t planned on making dinner this early, but I needed something to occupy his time and his mind, something to give him to do that might take his mind off what had just happened, at least for a few hours.

Harris frowned, turning towards me slightly on the staircase. His book bag dropped off his shoulder and down to his waiting wrist, knocking against the staircase with a thump. “Make what?” he asked, his eyebrows pulling together.

I bit my lip. _Shit, I hadn’t thought this far_. “Uhh… lasagna…?” I pulled the suggestion from the air. I didn’t even know if James had the right ingredients for lasagna but it was a chance I was going to have to take now. If anything, I knew how to make pasta sheets, so that could take up some extra time if they didn’t have any.

Fresher was better in my opinion anyway…

I watched Harris mull the suggestion over in his head. I could see the hunger bloom in his eye and the excitement for such a delicious dish. He tried to hide it with a thoughtful frown, but I caught it. He was, after all, still only six. Which meant that he was bound by at least some of the characteristics that came with being an easily persuaded child.

Well _that_ , and I knew that most kids his age were food oriented. Just like dogs. And admittedly, just like me.

“Okay,” he finally conceded, nodding once. I gave a small smile of triumph, kind as it was and he dropped his book bag at the foot of the stairs and walked with me through to the kitchen. We walked past the door to the back porch, where Stella was waiting for her afternoon cuddles.

Harris stopped to open the door and scratch her behind her ears, giving her a cuddle that I noticed lasted longer than it had on other days. My heart twinged at that, sad that we didn’t know each other well enough for me to offer some kind of similar security or kinship or comfort.

Instead I could just offer him a safe quiet space to try and work through his emotions and thoughts by kneading dough, which was exactly what I was planning to do.

He followed me into the kitchen and we got to work. I showed him how to mix the eggs and the flour and the water to turn it into a solid dough. And like any curious six year old, he asked me if he could try a piece of it raw. I had smiled and laughed at that.

I gave him a tiny corner to nibble at, not worried about the tiny, _miniscule_ threat of salmonella that bloggers tried to warn you about from raw egg. I had no doubt that he wouldn’t find the raw dough form all that tasty anyway.

And like I’d predicted, he screwed his nose up at the flavor, making me chuckle. Then I helped him to roll out the dough into a flat piece. He had to stand on a chair to get the right leverage, but eventually, he got there.

The smile on his face from the satisfaction of doing the task perfectly was enough to warm my heart. I was glad that I could put a smile on that little innocent face after the day’s ordeals. He deserved a piece of happiness in a shitty shitty world that raised kids like those at his school.

“So, now we set it over here to rest while we make the meat sauce layers,” I smiled. Harris nodded eagerly, fully concentrated on his task as we set the pasta sheets aside. Then I got out all the ingredients for the meat. The ground beef and the tomatoes and some wayward vegetables in the refrigerator that I could chop finely and add to the sauce.

When I was on the stove and simmering nicely, I left Harris to stir it slowly and work the heat through evenly. My good mood was rubbing off on him, and the chance for him to present this meal to his father as something he’d made largely on his own was something that I could tell was exciting him.

The satisfaction of making something with your bare hands for someone else to enjoy was a great feeling. Plus, I figured both boys would enjoy a meal a little more complex than grilled meat and vegetables. I hoped they’d be able to tell that Harris had made the meal with love.

Plus, the act had the added bonus of being entirely self-serving, as lasagna was a favorite meal of mine and it was a great Friday night treat.

I moved over to the small Bluetooth stereo on a nearby counter and rested my phone in the cradle. Then, scrolling through my Spotify playlists, I settled on one that I felt suited the afternoon’s mood. _Queen’s Greatest Hits_ on shuffle.

When the opening clicks to ‘Killer Queen’ came through the speakers, a smile lifted to my lips. Harris looked up from the stove top with a curious frown.

“What’s this?” he asked, his voice light as my jaw dropped. Freddie Mercury’s voice filled the gap between us as I wondered how on earth James had not introduced his son to this all-time fantastic band and their entire discography.

 _She keeps her_ Moet et Chandon _in her pretty cabinet. "Let them eat cake", she says just like Marie Antoinette…_

“This is _Queen_ ,” I said simply, deciding to shake it off. He was only still young, after all, and I didn’t mind being the one to school him on good music tastes. “They’re fantastic and I think you’ll like them,” I grinned.

_At anytime an invitation you can't decline…_

Harris smiled, nodding as I began swaying to the beat of the song. He listened intently to the lyrics, bobbing along to the bursts of piano. The lilt of his lips as he enjoyed the synths and the melody made me grin.

_She's a Killer Queeeeeen. Gunpowder, gelatine. Dynamite with a laser beam  
Guaranteed to blow your mind. Anytiiiiiime…_

The music moved into the small electric guitar riff and I grinned, moving over and holding out my hand for Harris to take. I wanted him to dance with me.

The boy just looked at me, a smile in his eyes as if unsure if he should do it or not.

“I have to do the meat,” he said in protest, but I could tell he didn’t really mean it. I grinned, waving it off.

“It’ll be fine,” I smiled, reassuring him. “One little dance won’t burn our dinner. Come on,” I grinned in encouragement.

Harris gave me a small grin as he got down from the chair and joined me as I did a little silly dance. The giggle that lifted from his lips was more music to my ears than even my beloved Freddie Mercury.

_In conversation she spoke just like a baroness…_

I took Harris’ hands and led him through an easy little four step dance to the left, then to the right, making me laugh as he kept his eyes on the floor to watch my feet.

_She's a Killer Queeeeeen. Gunpowder, gelatine. Dynamite with a laser beam  
Guaranteed to blow your mind. Anytiiiiiime…_

Harris grinned as he finally got the hang of my little dances as the guitar riff rained down again.

_Drop of a hat she's as willing as. Playful as a pussy cat. Then momentarily out of action, temporarily out of gas. To absolutely drive you wiiiiild, wiiiiild. She's all out to get you…_

I added a few little hops into our four step dance, which was turning into more of a square dance kind of feel, which made Harris chuckle.

_She's a Killer Queeeeeen. Gunpowder, gelatine. Dynamite with a laser beam  
Guaranteed to blow your mind. Anytiiiiiime…_

_Recommended at the price, insatiable an appetite. Wanna tryyyy? You wanna tryyyyy…_

When the song petered out, I smiled and led him back to the stove.

“How are we lookin’, chief?” I grinned as Harris got back up on his chair and stirred. ‘Bicycle Race’ started to play and I grinned, just letting it fill the background as Harris let me lean over his shoulder for a peek.

“Oh my god, it looks perfect,” I smiled, making Harris’ eyes light up with pride. “We’re going to need a taste-tester, though, Mr. Chef.”

The boy could barely contain his excitement as he bounced on his heels and I suppressed my chuckle. I took a small silver spoon from a drawer and plunged it into the meat sauce. Bringing it out, I encouraged Harris to blow on it first to cool it down so that he didn’t burn his tongue.

The sounds that he made, ones of glee, only confirmed to me that he was happy with our success. I grinned.

“That good, huh?” I smiled. “May I?”

Harris smiled, nodding and holding the spoon out for me before getting down from the chair to give me some room. The mixture was perfect and I smiled.

“Awesome. Time for some assembly and some cheese and then we’ll put it in the oven ready for dinner.”

Harris could barely contain his excitement as I turned the stove onto a low heat to keep our mixture warm. Then he helped me find a good tray to layer up our dinner.

“So, we need a layer of pasta, then meat, then repeat until we fill it up to the top of the tray,” I said. “Then we have to sprinkle some cheese on top to melt. Usually, there’d also be some white sauce in there as well, but I don’t think we need it today because this tastes pretty perfect so far.”

“Really?” Harris smiled proudly. I grinned, nodding, happy to have lifted his spirits.

“Absolutely,” I said. “Probably the best lasagna I’ve ever had.”

Harris grinned and watched as I began layering the pasta sheets on the bottom. Then I became in charge of slathering the layer with meat sauce while he did the next layer of pasta. We continued until it was full. Then after showing Harris how to grate the cheese, we sprinkled it on top of our meal and I placed it into the oven to cook for an hour or so.

The playlist kept up with some great hits from the band. Harris had like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ – as many do – before we’d unanimously decided that it was time to give Stella her afternoon walk as our dinner cooked.

Walking the ranch with Harris and Stella was fun as we played fetch with her as the sun set. The earlier tension in the car had dissipated and I smiled as I watched the much happier young boy run around after his dog.

By the time we headed inside, ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ was blasting through the speakers. Harris ignored it, running forwards to instead peek through the window of the oven to spy on our dinner.

“How are we looking there Mr. Chef?”

Harris grinned. “Cheese looks melted.”

“Oh yeah?” I moved forward and had a look. I frowned. “Hmmm. Cheese is indeed melted, but we want it to get nice and crispy and golden brown on top. We’ve got to wait for some of those yummy burn spots for the flavor. Why don’t you go and wash up before we eat and by the time you get back, I reckon it’ll be ready–”

My train of thought was cut off as the song changed and ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ began filtering into the kitchen. Excited, I let out a squeal and turned to Harris.

“Wait! You can go wash up after this song. This one is the best one,” I grinned and started jumping up and down.

“Oh, I know this one!” Harris called excitedly and I grinned.

“Really?” I laughed, taking his hands to dance and jump up and down again. “It’s one of my favorites!” I squealed with glee. Harris just laughed as we danced.

_I'm gonna go, go, go, there's no stopping meeeee. I'm burnin' through the sky, yeah. Two hundred degrees, that's why they call me Mister Fahrenheit. I'm traveling at the speed of light, I wanna make a supersonic man out of youuuuu._

_Don't. Stop. Me. Nooooow, I'm having such a good time, I'm having a ball._ _Don't. Stop. Me. Nooooow._

We danced like nobody was watching. I pulled Harris up to stand on my fert at one point to drag him around the kitchen which made him erupt in a fit of giggles. He sung along at some points, which impressed me.

When the song ended, our chests were heaving and his eyes were light with laughter.

I hadn’t even noticed James standing in the doorway to the kitchen, leaning on the frame and watching us. I almost jumped out of my skin with a laugh when he cleared his throat. Harris looked up with a grin at his dad.

“What’s going on here?” James asked, his eyes sparking as his lip tugged upward.

I rolled my eyes with a grin.

“Oh, I was just introducing your son here to only one of the best bands in existence. A true crime you hadn’t done so yourself, sooner,” I chided. James just chuckled.

“Dad, guess what?” Harris chimed. James smiled at his son.

“What, bud?”

“Yvie taught me how to make lasagna!”

James’ eyebrows shot up. “Really?” I smiled, nodding.

“Yeah,” I gestured to the oven, “It’s almost ready. I figured we could do an early dinner.”

James grinned. “Oh, well if that’s the case, then maybe you should go wash up, bud?”

Harris nodded, skipping off towards the stairs to go and bathe. I smiled as I watched him go. When James turned back to face me, he had an earnest smile on his lips, which only made me blush.

“Uhh… thanks,” he said. I smiled, shrugging him off.

“It’s no problem. Picking him up was easy.”

James shook his head. “No, not that. I mean… thanks for _that_ , but I mean… thanks for cheering him up. I haven’t been able to put a smile on that kid’s face for weeks.”

“Oh,” I said, smiling softly. “Oh, well, yeah he’s a great kid. I think he had fun learning to cook a little bit.”

James nodded at my words. He seemed troubled, and it only confirmed with me that he truly had no idea that some kids in his class were bullying his son. I felt bad for the man.

There was a moment as he stared kindly into my eyes that I wondered whether I should breach the Sofia conversation again… but then I decided against it. Why ruin the great afternoon I’d had and my success in cheering up Harris by making it awkward with my pushy questions.

I had a feeling that Harris’ sad demeanor came from more than just the teasing at the school. I had the feeling that it also had to do with his mother, which might have been why James was finding it so hard to break his son from his funk.

Plus those kids at the school had mentioned Harris’ absent mother, which was hardly fair. I truly felt for the kid.

“Umm… how is your cow? And the calf?” I asked, changing the subject. I wanted to keep our conversation going.

James just chuckled, shaking his head. “False alarm,” he shrugged, which made me laugh. Dinner was easy after that, because Harris’ excitement over the fantastic meal he’d made was rubbing off on all three of us.

.

**I can think of other things Yvie would like rubbing off on her ;P**

**Who loves Harris? Bc I sure do. I would protect that kid in a heartbeat.**


	8. Seven: In Which She Strikes Out... Or Does She?

**SEVEN: In Which She Strikes Out… Or Does She?**

**Yvonne**

_The_ Phi Delta Theta _frat house was a mess, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary. Plus, they’d had a huge party the night before. I knew, because I’d only been invited out about six times from various friends and declined them all._

_I had not had any desire to see Rio again after our last argument slash angry sex slash breakup._

_But now, he was kind of unavoidable. After what I’d discovered this morning…_

_Stepping over discarded red solo cups and beer bottles, plus the occasional couple passed out in their underwear – some sans-underwear – I made my way up to his bedroom._

_While I didn’t think he’d be in there, because he often spent afternoons in the basketball gym to practice, I figured it was the easiest place to check for him first because his frat house was on my walk home from campus anyway._

_I took a deep breath when I made it to the top of the stairs, and then waded through more wayward rubbish before I was standing at his door. My heart thumped in my chest as I tried to decide if I actually wanted to go through with this._

_We hadn’t spoken in weeks. This was not exactly what I’d call good timing._

_I took another deep breath, steeling my resolve and mustering up the last bit of confidence that I had in me. Then I knocked twice on the door, softly, like my confidence was receding with each passing millisecond._

_My eyebrows shot to the sky when I heard a muffled ‘it’s open’ from the other side of the door. Mental panic ensued._

Shit. This is not a good idea. Abort mission. Abort, abort, abort…

_Apparently, I took too long to open the door while I was in my state of alarm, because I barely had time to register the shuffling behind the wood paneling before it was being pulled open._

_Rio wasn’t wearing a shirt. His dreads were free of their usual bun and hanging freely down his back and over his shoulders. My lips parted, eyes wide as I watched his dark eyebrows pull up in confusion._

_“Yvonne?” he asked, then leant against the doorframe, frowning. “What are you doing here?” He looked both ways down the hallway as if wondering if anyone had seen me come by._

_I didn’t detect any malice in his tone, so maybe he had sorted out whatever shit was going on with him the last time we’d been with each other. He didn’t seem to be holding anything against me anymore._

_That was only going to make this more complicated, probably. Part of me wished for him to want nothing to do with me. For him to hate me. That would make this more clinical. More bearable. More easy to see the logical side of things._

Fuck.

_I bit my lip, shuffling nervously on my feet. I didn’t bother with pleasantries. This wasn’t just any regular house call, after all. “Can I come in?”_

_Rio frowned, eyes studying my face in a way I didn’t think I’d ever noticed him do before. Before, we were the hit it and quit it kind, so there had been no reason for him to memorize the lines of my face and what each minute twist of an expression might mean._

_But now he studied me. And whatever he deduced from the look in my eyes must have been what made him nod mutely before taking a step back. His arm arced out wide to usher me inside, and then the door was shut behind me._

_I stood by his bed, casting my eyes across the room. His laptop was open on his desk, among the mess of open textbooks and loose papers and class notes that made it difficult to find any spare piece of space on the cluttered piece of furniture._

_I didn’t dare sit on his made-up bed. The chaos of his exam prep and study being solely located at his desk. Like me, he procrastinated his study by tidying other things, so the usual casual mess of his bedroom throughout the week was nowhere to be seen in that moment._

_Rio took a step around me before falling into his rolling swivel-chair and turning to look at me. I hadn’t yet moved._

_He leant his elbows on his knees and looked at me curiously. If I wasn’t mistaken, he also seemed a little worried. I put it down to the stress of trying to ace his senior year midterms._

_“So… what’s up?”_

_My eyes darted back to his, and I could see his restlessness beginning. He thought I was here to waste his time when he could have spent it studying. He had obviously skipped training that afternoon to squeeze in a few extra hours of prep, and I was interrupting._

_I felt a twinge of guilt stab through me._ Was this the wrong time for me to be doing this? Was I sabotaging any shred of possibility for him to focus on his midterms?

 _The bomb I was dropping was already making_ me _cast aside any will to focus on school. And if I was right about the kind of person Rio was, then I would only be doing the same to him._

_But I’d already come this far. I couldn’t exactly bail without answering questions._

_I decided to swallow my guilt, instead reaching to reef through my bag. When my hand enclosed around it, I felt the weight of it strike through me. And the weight of the uncertainty of what would come next._

_I threw the positive test down on his duvet. Rio was unavoidable today because I’d woken up without my period again this morning. Late for the fourth day in a row, which never happened to me. And as a precaution, I’d run from my apartment to the nearest pharmacy._

_Then I’d skipped all my morning lectures to cry in stress about the result that had popped up on that stupid little pee-stick of truth._

_“The condom broke,” I said simply, shrugging as he stared wide-eyed at the positive pregnancy test that I’d offered._

_I didn’t know what else to say, or how to talk to him about this. Dropping this on him right in that moment was already bad enough. Plus, I’d spent hours coming to terms with the fact that there was something growing inside me. I couldn’t expect him to have anything to say on the matter right away._

_So, I stood and waited._

_I watched him try and make sense of it, watching his mind work behind his eyes. After fifteen minutes of awkward silence, my feet began to ache and I nodded to myself._

_I sighed, turning for the door. He could contact me if he wanted anything more to do with her bombshell news, but right then, I needed to get the hell out of that room._

_The same room that he’d blown up at me and then proceeded to fuck the shit out of me. In hindsight, it was no wonder that the condom broke, especially with how rough we had been with each other._

_But the memory of that night was making this all too real right then._

_For all I knew, it was a false positive._

_So, I turned for the door. When my hand hit the handle, Rio’s hand clamped softly around my elbow. I frowned, turning to face him as he towered over me._

_His expression was a mix of concern and confusion._

_“It’s mine?” he asked quietly, wincing slightly. I sighed, biting my lip._

_“Haven’t been with anyone since you,” I shrugged. “You know, busy with exams and everything…”_

_Rio sighed, running a hand through the ropes of his hair. I knew he would believe me. I hadn’t ever lied to him when we were together, not having ever been a fan of lying to the person you were sleeping with. And he knew that about me._

_Plus, I had no reason to lie about this. I mean, sure, we’d ended on a sour note, but then why would I lie about a baby if it would mean that he’d only be sticking around? Our ending on a sour note would mean that being around him would be the last thing I would want, so making up a baby would have been counter-productive._

_“And you’re keeping it?”_

_I couldn’t stop myself from wincing._ ‘It’… _I guess I couldn’t blame him for thinking of our baby as an ‘it’. I had done so when I’d first found out, too, not exactly in love with the idea of being pregnant so early in my twenties._

_But, as the day had bore on, I’d become a little more resolved with the fact that I might now be caring for two._

_But, as for his question, I was still undecided._

_“Haven’t decided yet,” I said wearily. Rio pursed his lips, nodding once. “I only found out today,” I went on. “I’ve got an appointment tomorrow morning. You’re welcome to come.”_

_Rio waved a hand down his face with shaky hands. I didn’t blame him. If the doctor confirmed in the morning that this was real, then it would change everything._

_Then he sighed. “I’ll be there,” he nodded. My guilt upon hearing that statement was overwhelming. He was a good person at his heart, and I’d known before stepping foot inside his frat house that he’d be sticking with me every step of the way on this._

_The kid was half his, after all._

_“Text me the time and address?” he asked._

_I nodded. Then, vacantly, my hand was back on the doorknob and I was walking from his bedroom. Everything was too much and I needed some kind of respite._

_I just didn’t know where to get it._

_I felt like I was suffocating._

_This was all becoming too real now that Rio was involved…_

.

“What are we doing in the back field of some random property? Isn’t this considered trespassing?”

James grinned as he pulled the truck into a large dirt yard. Ahead of us, looming into the sky was a metal shed that looked the size of two high school gymnasiums.

“We’re not trespassing,” James grinned as he opened the door and helped Harris out of the cab. The kid had the closest thing to a full smile on his face and was practically bouncing on his toes.

I chuckled and hopped down after them, letting my door slam.

“Then, where are we? I thought you’d be spending the Saturday with your cow?” I grinned up at James as I walked beside him. We made our way towards the large building.

Then my eyes widened and I stopped short in my tracks. I looked around me hurriedly. There was no one out here but us. James had turned around slightly at my frozen stature while Harris had run ahead to the shed, opened a door, and ducked inside.

“What’s up?” he rose an eyebrow at me, grinning.

“This isn’t where you kill me…, right?”

James didn’t answer right away, which allowed my brain to spin out of control with panic.

_No, he couldn’t be out here to kill me. I mean, he’d brought his kid for Christ’s sake! There’s no way he would… right?..._

“No,” he grinned, his shoulders shaking with laughter.

“Then…?”

James just smirked and waved a hand for me to follow him. When we made it to the same door that Harris had disappeared through moments before, James turned to grin at me.

“You remember that friend I told you about with the bowling alley on his property?” Without giving me a chance to answer, he swung open the door and my eyes were laid upon lanes upon lanes of polished hardwood lit by an array of different colored neon lights.

I couldn’t the way my jaw dropped. For something so out in the middle of nowhere, it was so professional. Harris was already playing a game on one of the lanes as club music from the 90s played distantly through a speaker somewhere.

James guided me inside, ignoring the dazed look in my eye as he led me over towards a booth to rent bowling shoes. There was a guy standing behind the counter who looked to be around his early thirties who was giving James a huge smile.

I didn’t hear anything that they said because my eyes were still bugging out of my head at the sheer size of the building. It seemed like one half was taken up with the bowling alley, and the second half was taken up with a giant roller skating rink. It was insane how huge this place was.

There was even a little diner at the edges that served hot carnival food and alcohol. Then there were booths to eat in and a little arcade with a billiard table and an air hockey table.

“Earth to Yvonne…” James called. I didn’t register that he was squeezing my hand until I looked up. The blush that fell over my cheeks was embarrassing, but James was smirking at me.

“Hi, yeah, sorry,” I grinned.

“This is Scooter,” James said, gesturing to the man behind the counter who gave me a knowing smile.

“Pretty impressive right,” he grinned, waving a hand around at his fully kitted out alley slash rink slash arcade slash everything cool ever.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry I spaced.”

Scooter just waved me off. “Nah, don’t worry about it. Most first timers here have the same look in their eyes. Took me quite a few years to get it fully up and running but I think because it’s in the middle of butt-fucking nowhere that it makes it seem a little more impressive.”

James just grinned at his friend. “Scooter isn’t known for his modesty around these parts,” he smirked. I rolled my eyes.

“Well, he’s got no reason to be modest. This whole place is awesome and you _should_ be proud of it,” I grinned, turning to face him.

Scooter smirked then gave a look at James that made me think of a kid sticking his tongue out at his parent behind their back. That ‘I told you so’ look. I grinned.

“What size?” Scooter asked. My eyebrow quirked. Scooter just grinned. “Shoe size, babe. For the alley.”

“Oh!” I grinned, feeling like an idiot that I had no idea what he’d been talking about. “Umm… size eight?”

Scooter nodded, leaning down and bringing out two pairs of shoes. “Sweet. I’ll set up the lane for you and then I’ll get out of your hair. I’ve got a big birthday party coming in tonight that I need to set the function room up for.”

“Thanks, man,” James grinned, taking the shoes. I smiled, taking mine as well.

“No problem. And it was nice to meet you, Yvonne. I hope you’ll be sticking around town for a while,” he grinned, before sending me a wink. I was stunned by it, the open flirtation in his features.

I felt James tense minutely beside me. When I turned back to him, I caught the ghost of a look across his features before he schooled them back to the calm and collected smile that I knew.

“Shall we?” he smiled, opening his arm up to show me the way to our lane. I gave him a quizzical smile before deciding to let it go. I followed the way he showed me to and ended up in the lane beside where Harris was playing.

The kid was on a roll and I smiled. He had a serious look in his eyes for someone so small and I watched him whip the ball down the lane before hitting an almost perfect strike. The first nine pins toppled over easily, then the tenth wavering, rocking back and forth as if it couldn’t decide if it would fall or stand.

Then I watched Harris’ mouth tip into a small indulgent grin as the tenth pin fell over backwards and was swept away with the metal arm.

“Nice shot, buddy,” James grinned. Harris gave a little blush, nodding once as he hopped back to find another ball for his next turn.

I turned back to James, then moved past him towards the control system. James sat down to tie up his shoes while I moved to punch our names into the game.

When I turned back to face James, I was wearing a competitive grin. He was about to see a whole new side of me that he hadn’t anticipated.

“I am going to _crush_ you, Williams,” I grinned, my eyebrow raising in challenge as I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Oh, is that so, Hopkins?” he smirked. “You sure you wanna do that? I mean, where do you think Harris got his superior skills?”

I just keep grinning, my eyes narrowing with the challenge. There was no way he was going to rock my resolve with his words. I might have known deep down that I was a monumentally terrible bowler – I had Cece’s voice in the back of my head telling me just that as I stared down the ridiculously attractive man in my path – but there was no way James should have underestimated me when I put my mind to something…

.

By the time we made it back to the house, it was long past sunset and Harris was falling asleep in the cab of the truck against my shoulder, exhausted.

James had whooped my ass in nine out of the ten games we had played, but I had not let that affect me. And then on a whim, I had issued a challenge that our tenth game be worth the bragging rights of the past nine.

Then by some miracle, I had managed to win against the man who had shown he could win close to the maximum number of points – 300 – in a single game.

I refused to believe that he went easy on me, instead choosing to believe that the crazed look in my eye had been the catalyst that gave him the good sense to back down.

I helped James get Harris out of the car before he pulled the boy into his arms to carry him inside and up to bed. I couldn’t help but chuckle as he clambered past me through the door, Harris’ head was lolling against his father’s shoulder.

James just smirked and took the steps upstairs to tuck his son into bed after a long day of playing in the world’s greatest hidden treasure of a backyard hobby. That didn’t even make sense in my brain when I thought of it, but you know what I mean.

I took myself to the kitchen, grabbing a beer and unscrewing the cap before making my way back out to the living room where I collapsed onto the couch. The day had been long and distracting.

Distracting enough that I hadn’t thought about the dream that had woken me up at two in the morning with a tightness in my heart that rivalled how I’d felt on the actual day of that fateful dream. I couldn’t believe how vivid the memory of it had been, and how much I felt every emotion that I’d felt when I’d tossed that positive pregnancy test onto Rio Lewis’ comforter and changed his life in a second – changed _both_ our lives.

My hand fell to my stomach, cradling at the phantom of a bump that had long ago gone away. I moved to take a sip from my drink and find _anything else_ to think about so that I might avoid a scene in which James would walk in on me bawling and I’d have to explain.

That was not the kind of baggage that I’d been willing to burn anyone with since it had actually happened.

It was a secret I’d long ago promised myself I would keep forever.

I shook my head when I hear soft footsteps reaching the foot of the staircase. I turned my head slightly, catching James’ eye with a slight smile. James grinned back at me.

“Harris is asleep. The second his head hit the pillow,” he chuckled, shaking his head slightly.

I smiled as James fell into the sofa beside me. “He seemed like he had fun today. I’m glad.” After the sting of seeing him with those kids at the school, it had been nice to see him enjoying himself. Those kids were assholes and if they couldn’t see what an absolute joy that Harris was to be around, then they were missing out _big time._

“Yeah. Bowling is his favorite pastime. And Anya wasn’t available today to look after him at the school like she usually does, which he was pretty cut up about so I figured we could treat him.”

I smiled. He was such a good dad, and I don’t think he even saw it in himself.

“What’s up with you, though?” he asked, his eyebrow lifting as he ran a hand through his hair. “When I came in, you looked half like you’d seen a ghost…”

I bit my bottom lip, eyes tearing away from him as I took another sip of my drink. I gave a slight nod. There was no way I could deny it, but I wasn’t letting my tongue slip on this one. The least I could do was keep him from seeing the small tear that had sprung to my eyes at the thought of that little baby.

If he saw that look, he’d definitely ask more questions. But I could feel his eyes on me so, I knew he needed something from me.

I sighed, shaking my head slightly as I swallowed my drink. When I turned back to him, I shrugged my shoulders. He was wearing a sympathetic look in his eye, the one I couldn’t stand from people, which is why I’d never told anyone about this.

“It’s nothing,” I seceded. “I–”

“–was just thinking about how shit you are at bowling?” He grinned, cutting my off. My eyes flipped up to his and my jaw dropped in urge to scoff. I was grateful for the change in subject, but also for the fact that he had seemed to sense that I needed it.

But I was also offended.

“ _Excuse me_ ,” I laughed. “You accepted the challenge that the tenth game was the only one that counted! So, in my eyes, I am the only winner in this room.”

James grinned. “Oh, is that so?”

“Yes!” I laughed, hitting him in the shoulder with my free hand. And then my hand lingered on his skin. It was warm, like pressing up against a dimming space heater.

When my gaze moved from where my fingers lingered up to meet James’ eyes. Only to find that he was already looking at me with a heated look in his eyes that rivalled the one beneath my fingertips. My breathing became harsh and labored as he stared me down.

My whole body felt on fire as he fixed me with his gaze. I couldn’t help the way that my tongue darted out to wet my bottom lip. I watched his eyes dart down to witness the act and I felt my stomach clench.

I didn’t know if it was the excitement of the day affecting me, the beer I’d just finished, or the mere fact of sitting so close to this man, but it was like my whole body clenched with the palpable air between us.

When his eyes flipped back to meet mine, there was a new challenge there. The same glint that had highlighted his irises in the moment that he’d accepted my challenge back at the bowling alley.

And then I didn’t know what happened, but between one blink and the next, I was sitting in the man’s lap and his face was in my hands. His hands were on my waist, hot beneath the thin material of my t-shirt as his lips devoured mine in an attempt to make us as one.

I gasped into his kiss as it consumed me. My core was pressed against his and I arched my back into him.

The last week of stolen glances and shy smiles and hot flushes and I had had no idea that it would amount to anything. To think that a week ago, I’d had no idea who this man was, and now, knowing all the things that I did about him, I wanted him more than I think I’d ever wanted anyone.

Rio Lewis included.

But I didn’t want to think about him. So, to push my ex from my mind, I pressed myself closer to James, my fingers curling into his hair to hold him to me as my lips parted and allowed his tongue to find refuge with mine.

I moaned into him and reveled in the feeling of his hands winding up the back of my shirt to undo the clasp of my bra. It fell loose beneath my shirt and I suddenly needed both pieces of clothing gone.

I parted our lips, leaning away as I moved to rip the clothing from my body. We were a mess of hands as he tried to help me, but then his eyes widened and his fingertips fell away as his gaze settled on my breasts and the two shining barbells that crossed through my nipples.

My chest heaved with our actions from moments before, the skin around my nipples pebbling beneath his gaze. I had gotten them pierced on a whim after college. I had wanted a tattoo but couldn’t think of anything that I wanted on my body permanently, and had decided to make a decision on a whim when I got into the parlor.

But then the artist had also offered an array of piercings and I’d fallen in love with the idea.

There was something so much more taboo and naughty about hidden body piercings.

James had already caught a glimpse of these when he’d found me masturbating in my car, or at least, I’d thought he had. But now, at seeing the look in his eyes, there was no way that could have been true.

His fingertips were at my waist, caressing the bones of my hips as his eyes stayed fixed to my breasts as I tried to control my breathing. A task that was seemingly impossible with what the look in his eyes was doing to me.

“You’re fucking _stunning_ , Yvie,” he whispered to me, eyes still on my body. My face split into a satisfied and cocky grin at having rendered him close to speechless, but before any words could utter through his lips, I was cut off with my own choked gasp as his mouth descended on my chest and sucked.

Hard.

I moved a hand from his hair, making a fist and shoving it into my mouth to stifle the ungodly moan that threatened to scream through me at the pleasure I felt of him fondling my titty piercings with his ever talented tongue.

And then he whirled me around, his mouth still on my chest but I was suddenly on my back on the sofa. When he moved from one nipple to the other, I almost cried out at how much my core clenched, yearning to be around him.

And then he sucked a trail up to my lips, taking mine into his mouth and eating me up like his favorite meal. My core unconsciously beat against his like a drum, his weight a welcome pressure above me.

When we surfaced, he took a moment to throw his own shirt off before settling me with the look in his eyes.

“Is this okay?” he asked, unsure, but the look in his eyes said otherwise. There was a tightness to his body and the soft light of the living room made his dark skin glow. My mouth watered.

“Get back down here,” I nodded breathlessly.

I lost myself in him, not knowing where he started and where I began, or the opposite way around. Not until we were both lying naked against his sofa and I gasped at the weight of his cock falling against my inner thigh.

The man was _hung_.

I grinned greedily and James just rolled his eyes and dove to press his lips to the base of my throat, then up around to the base of my ear.

I let out a long moan that hitched in the middle.

I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t had good dick in months, and hadn’t had a good release either, not since he’d interrupted me a week ago. My hand crept beneath our pressed skin until I could squeeze him in my palm, making him groan into my neck.

And then I couldn’t take it anymore. I pulled him away from my neck to stare into his eyes.

“I need you,” I breathed, my voice tight. And James understood. And he was carrying me, his lips sealed over mine as he took the stairs until I was lying on his soft comforter. The room was dark, but I could still see the spark in his eyes.

My core throbbed with the need for him and I moaned as he moved down my body, his tongue dipping into the valley of my breasts, and then my navel, before swirling around the sensitivity of my swollen clit. I gasped against him, accidentally thrusting and bumping against his nose.

He just chuckled into me, teasing my lips with one strong, sure swipe of his tongue that made me want to cream against his face.

I lost count of how many times he made me see white as his head was buried between my legs. And then we were flipped and I was towering over him, my hands on his shoulders as he positioned us and then we became one and my head was thrown back to see stars.

We rose up and up and up together until I couldn’t tell if we were still tethered to the ground. I felt like I was floating.

And then the world came crashing down with a cry as I felt the hard steel of him hit a place inside me that I hadn’t reached in years.

And I never wanted it to end…

.

**I wouldn’t want it to end either…**


	9. Eight: In Which She Defends Him

**EIGHT: In Which She Defends Him**

**Yvonne**

_Going into my fifth month of pregnancy and I don’t think I’d ever been more depressed. I didn’t have any of that glow that people talked about. If anything, I felt like there was a parasite inside me._

_Rio just continued to tell me that my hormones were affecting my emotions and that it was normal for me to be feeling a disconnect to my baby._

My baby… _that still felt weird to think about. Because nothing about this pregnancy had made me think that any of it was for me._

_Rio was being as supportive as he knew how, but it was a little difficult right now as he was going into his finals of his senior year at college. I was feeling the same pressure in my finals for my junior year, but also not to the same extent. I had already organized to take my next semester off for the baby’s sake so that my grades wouldn’t suffer while I decided what I was going to do towards the end of my pregnancy._

_Because while Rio had been completely supportive these first few months, I still hadn’t made up my mind about what I’d do after I’d given birth. I hadn’t made up my mind in time to have an abortion, and then by the time I’d heard his heartbeat I’d decided that I would go to full term._

_That’s right…_ his _heartbeat. I was carrying a little boy, or at least, I had convinced myself that I was. I didn’t know what it was about my little Bean, but I had always thought of him as a little boy._

_Call it mother’s intuition, though I still didn’t think of myself as a mother._

_He was big enough and grown enough now – about the size of a banana – that if I’d wanted his sex confirmed by the doctor then I could have asked for it, but I’d decided not to know._

_I was also going through so many other joys that pregnancy offered at the halfway mark. I was showing, a small little rounded bean at the lower end of my stomach. I hadn’t gained as much weight as my doctor had projected though, which worried Rio to no end, especially seeing how tall he was and how large of a baby he’d been._

_It concerned me, too, that my little Bean was going to be much too small. I wasn’t surprised at all, though, that he was still only small. Mostly because my energy had been at an all time high for the last month or so – my libido, too – and after only a little convincing, Rio had stepped up to help me keep up my exercise… if you know what I mean…_

_I had been concerned that sex with Rio again would make all this too complicated, but then again, I figured it was better to get myself off with him than it was to go around bars finding strangers to fuck me. And Rio had agreed with me, and so he’d said goodbye to his casual sex partners for a few months so that he wouldn’t give me some kind of virus, and then he was at my constant beck and call._

_I didn’t hear him complaining._

_Rio was also the other reason that my pregnancy decisions had become so complicated and confusing. As I’d expected he would, he was all in for this pregnancy. He was the ride or die kind, and that included our predicament. He’d shown up for that first doctor appointment after I’d ambushed him at his frat house with a pregnancy test, and then had been like a buzzing fly around my head since._

_Annoying and always present._

_But at least the ‘always present’ part of that allowed me to get some use out of him. He didn’t seem to mind being my personal delivery service when I wanted late night_ Ben and Jerry’s _brownie ice cream and a pickle to use as a spoon – don’t judge me, pregnancy cravings are a_ bitch _._

_He didn’t mind being my hair-tie when I was throwing up in the morning, or my sex bunny when my hormones drove me so crazy that I couldn’t make it out of bed that day._

_He was annoyingly helpful. And always the voice of reason when my emotions got too much for me and made me lash out. He was there to massage my leg cramps, or to catch me and bring me a glass of water when I got so dizzy that I stumbled._

_And he was in my apartment right in that moment, too, working on his laptop with his headphones in as he sat on the couch with my feet in his lap. I was watching the UK version of_ House Hunters _, feeling bored out of my mind. I had to clench my hands to stop them shaking. I was feeling adrenaline run through me for no reason – just another ‘pro’ of this pregnancy that I could roll my eyes at._

_I had never been so active before I’d gotten knocked up._

_I looked over at Rio, my lips pursed as I watched him concentrate. His brows were creased in the middle, not indifferently to the way they did when he was close to climax._

_I had finished my exams for the year, but Rio still had an essay or two to submit. I had told him numerous times that he should study in the bedroom for some peace and quiet but he had waved me off._

_I breathed in deeply as I watched him. He hadn’t ever blown up at me again like he had the night he’d dropped me. If anything, he walked on eggshells around me now. Probably afraid that I’d kick him out of my life and never let him see his kid._

_But that wasn’t what was on my mind as I watched him. Instead I thought about how, despite the number of times we’d had sex since finding out I was having a baby, I still felt nothing for him. I was horny for his body, sure – anyone with a working brain would be – but I wasn’t feeling any emotional pull that might tie him to me as a partner._

_It didn’t matter right now that I was the center of his world, because I was always reminded that it wasn’t really_ me _at the center. It was this baby._ Our _baby…_

_And maybe that was what kept me from falling for him in the way that he’d feared, because I knew that if I didn’t have his child growing inside me, I’d have been content to never see his face again._

_I sighed to myself, shifting slightly. Rio looked up from his laptop, meeting my eyes with a concerned look in his own. Always ready to give me a hand if I were uncomfortable. For the_ baby’s _sake. Not mine._

_“You okay?” he asked, moving a lock of hair behind his ear to pull out an earbud. “Need to get up and move around?”_

_I grimaced, nodding. “Yeah. He’s pushing on my bladder,” I lied. Bean wasn’t really, I was just feeling the need to move away from this man. Rio nodded, getting up to help me to my feet before I walked through my small apartment to find the bathroom. I sat on the lid of the toilet for a while with my head in my hands, breathing harshly, my eyes closed for a moment with myself._

_My throat felt tight and I had to grip my fingers in my hair to stop them from trembling. I barely recognized myself these days. All my thoughts focused on Bean instead of myself, and Rio was the same. I was just a vessel to him, a means to an end._

_After a few moments, I pulled myself to my feet and over to the basin. Splashing some cold water on my face._

_“Snap out of it,” I muttered to myself. I recognized my destructive thoughts, but couldn’t think of a way to disassociate myself from them. I knew that Rio wasn’t the only cause for my feeling so alone._

_I was also just physically so alone. In any other event, I’d have stormed over to my sister, Cece’s, apartment and demanded she make room in her schedule to love me for a little while. But that was impossible now, because she was away and living up her life in New York. I had always had plans to live there after college, too._

_I couldn’t call my parents. As I’d feared they would, they hadn’t spoken to me since finding out I was pregnant and considering an abortion. I’d been terrified to tell them, and then when they’d shut me out, I wasn’t able to tell them that I hadn’t gone through with it and that I was still carrying._

_The Pro-Lifer’s that they were, I couldn’t expect them to understand my mental state or what I was going through. Like Rio, they cared about the baby’s life more than they did mine._

_I could have called Cece, because she was on my side in all of this, but I didn’t want to bother her. Instead, I just forced myself to pull all of my miserable parts together and walk back out to the living room. Rio was practically living with me at this point, and the sight of his stuff everywhere was only annoying me._

_Sometimes people just needed space._

_When I walked back out to slump on the sofa, I was surprised to find that Rio had turned off the television and shut his laptop, and was plugging his phone into the stereo._

_“What’s happening?” I frowned. He turned around at hearing my voice, his long thick braids swinging in the air. He had gone to a salon for hours over two days to get his dreads detangled, trimmed, and braided instead. I remembered thinking that the change was a sexy kind of different. And then we’d had sex on my sofa – the exact one I wanted to sink into right then to avoid whatever the hell he was about to drag me into._

_Rio gave me a soft smile. “I saw your hands shaking,” he said, shrugging. “Figured you could use some kind of exercise right now to get that surge out of your system, because judging by the scowl that’s on your face, you’re not in the mood for sex.”_

_I gave a huff as he smirked knowingly at me. Then I rolled my eyes._

_“Fine. What did you have in mind?”_

_Rio just grinned, turning back to his phone for a minute. When he turned back around with a wide smile and his arms spread wide, I could hear_ Queen’s _‘Somebody To Love’ filtering through the system._

_I hated that he had turned them into my favorite band. I had liked them well enough before I’d met him, but he had been such a super fan that it had been hard not to fall in love with them the same way he had._

_Rio took the few steps towards me that closed the distance between us, and then he was taking my hands and giving me a warm smile. I sighed, forcing myself to let my frustration of the day away with every beat of the song._

_I could feel my body relaxing into his touch and following his body as he stepped to the song. Eventually, I felt a small smile spread slowly across my lips, lighting my eyes._

_Rio smiled at that._

_And then the song changed._

_I grinned as ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ began playing. My favorite. Chuckling to myself, we started singing along to the lyrics. Rio was laughing and then we were bouncing up and down, as much as was okay when I was halfway through my pregnancy._

_And then I felt something. Something I’d never felt._

_I gasped, my hand on my stomach as I let go of Rio. He looked down at me concerned, but my eyes were tight with wonder, filling with tears of fascination._

_“What? Yvie, what’s wrong?” he asked worriedly. My lips were gaped apart and I shook my head slightly, eyes wide._

_“Just… keep singing,” I said before taking his hand and pressing it to my bump._

_“Don’t stop me now,_ _I'm having such a good time, I’m– HOLY SHIT!” he called out, sinking to his knees in front of me as I smiled down at him. A real smile, one of my first in a long time._

_“I think he likes the sound of your voice,” I managed to say as we both pressed hands to Bean, feeling him kick intermittently at our hands for the first time ever._

_When my eyes caught Rio’s, he was crying happy tears as well. and then Rio was pulling himself to his feet and cradling my face in his hands and then his lips were on mine. I gasped into his soft kiss. My hands still cradled my little Bean, and eventually one of Rio’s hands slid back down to join mine._

_But he kept one hand on my face. And then I was crying for a different reason. Because he had a hand on each of us. Feeling each of us. Bean_ and _me. For the first time, I cried because I felt like he saw me. Saw me as more than just the incubator for his child. He actually saw_ me.

_I cried into our kiss, feeling the salt of my tears mix with our lips as he held me with him. And I could hear him whispering my name between kisses. And I realized I was whispering his name, too._

_And not for the first time, I wondered to myself if this – what we were doing for our Bean – was healthy. Neither of us knew what would happen when he was brought into this world. Neither of us were even ready for it. And that scared the shit out of me._

_Because Rio was here right now, but would he always be? He loved Bean now, but who knew what would happen in the future…_

_Where would it leave me?_

.

Surprisingly, the morning after our first night together wasn’t even awkward. At least, not for more than a mere moment.

We had smiled sheepishly at each other over the tops of the bedsheets before I had rolled my eyes with a grin and pulled James back towards me and crushed my lips to his. I needed to erase the dream that I’d had, and James was so near and ready that I didn’t want to let the moment pass me by.

He had groaned into me, and then grinded into me if you know what I mean.

And then he had gotten up to shower and tend to the early morning tasks of the ranch while I’d gone downstairs to clean up our discarded clothes before Harris might see them. I didn’t want him to think about what my being with his father, especially when he was still obviously so torn up about his mom.

Luckily, the kid wasn’t awake yet and I was able to clean up and then make myself some breakfast. Harris trudged down the staircase soon after and made himself comfortable at the kitchen island with his bowl of _Trix_. I had smiled fondly at him and then driven him to school.

I had amused myself throughout the day with some research for work, even though I was technically taking my vacation leave. The day was mostly relaxed. I fielded a call from Morris about the rental car. Things still weren’t looking good, and he had a representative from the airport coming out to look at the car soon, sometime this week hopefully.

He would need me to come around to the garage when they did so that I could provide proof of rental.

By the time the afternoon came around, I was relaxing on the sofa watching cartoons – _Phineas and Ferb_ , if you _must_ know – and James had gone to pick Harris up from school.

I wondered briefly about whether he might witness those other kids bullying his son. And then my questions were answered when the door burst open and I was pulled up from my laying position in concern as Harris streaked through the house, throwing down his backpack in a flurry of tears and running outside again.

James tore through the front door right after him.

“Harris!” he called, but it was already too late as the back door slammed. James looked down at me with the worst look I’d ever seen in his eyes.

“What happened?” I managed, my eyebrows high and my lips downturned and my hands clenched into fists at my sides as I went over to meet him. James ripped a hand through his hair and gestured after his son.

“I don’t know. _I don’t know_. He just got into the truck in tears and wouldn’t talk to me and then just bolted as soon as we got here,” he said, his voice so worried. I kept a hand on his chest, holding him, letting him know that he didn’t have to push me out of this. “I’ve never seen him like this before.”

I frowned up at James and he looked down at me, heartbroken.

“Did Anya say anything?” I asked, my voice trying to soothe as I tried to keep the waver from it. I wanted nothing more than to follow a father out to find his son, because I felt closer to them than I’d felt closer to anyone besides Cece in years.

James shook his head with a sigh.

“No. I heard some kid shout something about Sofia but then Harris slammed the door before I could hear the rest and he wouldn’t answer any of my questions,” he said, his voice choked. “I mean, I knew he wasn’t taking the whole deal with his Mom easily, but I didn’t think the other kids knew about it, or that he was being bullied. And Anya didn’t say a word to me about any of it…”

My heart tightened for him, clenching with the hurt I knew he must have been feeling a hundred-fold.

“I have to go after him,” he said, his voice strained. “He could hurt himself with something out there. Fuck! I don’t even know where he’d go.”

I pursed my lips, trying to pin point all the things I knew about Harris, like the things he was drawn to on our afternoon walks with Stella around the ranch.

“Yes, you do,” I said, reassuring him. He thought he was a terrible father, but he knew his son better than he thought he did. “The barn,” I said, trying to keep my voice level and soft. “He’d find comfort with the animals.” James looked into my eyes for a moment and nodded. He knew I was right. And so did I, because Harris would go where I would think to go, too. And animals didn’t talk back or ask questions, they just let you hold them as you fell apart.

I ran after James as we hurried out the house and towards the barn.

It didn’t take us long to find the boy. He was huddled in the last pen of the barn, curled up next to the heavily pregnant momma cow. His face was buried into the side of her neck and she was curved around him, as if sensing he needed the protection.

His sniffles were stifled as he cried into her coarse coat. He didn’t look up when we stepped towards him. James lowered himself down to his son’s level and curved a sympathetic hand to stroke at his hair. Harris turned a little and moved to wrap his arms around his father.

He buried his head in James’ neck and cried his heart out while James hugged him. I frowned, wanting to cry at the image of heartbreak before me. A child heartbroken over the loss of his mother. A husband heartbroken for the loss of his wife. And a father heartbroken, and at a loss to comfort his own child.

Eventually, James stood and moved them away from the cow, instead moving out of the pen and moving to sit back down on the floor. I reached out to stroke a hand down Harris’ hair, feeling him shudder out sobs beneath me.

Gone was the happy boy from the weekend who’d taken joy in playing at a friend’s backyard bowling alley. That boy was barely recognizable in this one. This traumatized and deeply sad boy who just wanted his family back and the teasing and torturing to stop.

I sat with them and James welcomed me into their space. I didn’t know why. I’d known the pair for little more than a week, but Harris seemed to want me there, too, because as I moved, he reached out to hold onto my index finger. He held it firmly, keeping me rooted in place with him.

I found a sense of comfort in the fact that he wanted me so close. And I hope he found comfort in me, too.

The sobs that wracked through his body tore me apart, but soon they started to die down as his exhaustion tired him out. He rested his head on his father’s shoulder, but he was facing me, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. My heart went out to him.

I stroked a finger beneath his eyes, wiping away his tears. James had been whispering sweet nothings to him, but he was silent now, just letting his son tell us what had happened on his own.

Instead, Harris lifted his head and turned to me, his wide eyes blinking out at me. They were a deep brown like his father’s, mostly. The left eye had a small blot in it that seemed a dark grey color, like his eyes had taken a coin toss at birth over what color they’d be. It sat just next to the pupil. I’d never noticed before. They were uniquely beautiful.

He let go of my finger and instead reached for me. Surprised, I could do nothing more but accept his embrace, pulling him into a tight hug. His lower half of his body stayed in his father’s lap, but I guess he wanted the both of us.

I frowned, holding him close.

“Will you tell us what happened, baby?” I asked, my voice low. Harris hiccupped into me, but after a moment, gave a slight nod.

“They call me names,” he whimpered. James looked livid. I guess he could assume what _colorful_ names that those racist little shits were calling his son. “And they pull at my hair. They throw rocks at me and tell me to die like Mommy.”

James was all tight muscle and rage. I put a hand on his forearm, begging him with my eyes not to say anything or react right now. Harris needed us to keep cool heads.

James exhaled deeply and nodded at me, but a fire was still raging behind my eyes.

“Will you shave my hair?” Harris asked, turning from my chest to face his father.

“What?” James’ eyes were wide at his son’s request. I bit my lip.

“So that they can’t pull on it anymore… It hurts.”

My face fell. This boy was hurting so much.

“Buddy… You shouldn’t be ashamed of your hair. If those kids don’t like it then that’s their problem…” James started, but I gave him a curious look that cut him off. I had an idea.”

“What if I braided it for you?” I asked. Harris looked up at me, eyes wide with something akin to hope. James looked at me surprised. The pure shock on his face was something I’d not seen from him yet.

"You’d know how to braid his hair? Like... to the scalp?"

I blushed. I hadn’t done it in years, but my fingers had memory. I nodded. “Yeah, I used to braid my ex-boyfriend's hair. He taught me how after he got his dreads detangled. His arms were too tired so I offered to help.”

James’ eyebrows were shot up in surprise, but I was looking down at Harris who was looking at me with wide eyes.

“Your hair is a little shorter, honey,” I smiled, “And it's in a bit more of an Afro, but it's the same concept if you'd like me to help?"

Harris hiccupped again, looking up at me as tears called to his eyes. I almost pouted with him. "You can really do that?"

I couldn’t help my smile as I swiped my thumb beneath his eye, wiping away his tears. "Of course, honey. You'll be a whole new you when I'm done with you."

Harris looked to his father for permission, and he just smiled, as if glad that at least this might cheer up his son. Harris pulled me into a fast hug, squeezing me tightly as he whispered a quick ‘yes, please, Yvie’ into my ear. I nodded and stroked at his hair, down his head before he pulled away.

“Okay. I’m sure your daddy has everything that I’ll need.”

James gave me a quick nod and then stood up. Harris moved from the floor after him, and then finally me. And then Harris took a hand from each of us and let us lead him back to the house under the setting sun. None of us had realized how long we’d been in the barn, but we were emotionally exhausted for a reason.

Once back inside the house, I moved to let Harris sit on the floor where I could perch myself on the sofa behind him. James went to find me a fine-toothed comb, some detangling spray and some curl cream.

I turned on the television to play the same Phineas and Ferb cartoon that I’d been watching when they’d arrived home and Harris had been transfixed as I got to work.

I found his hair easier to work with because it was nowhere near as long as Rio’s had been when I’d helped to braid the regrowth on his hair.

It took a few hours, and Harris was extremely patient with me as I worked. He sat easily between my legs as he let me work through his hair. I chose a simple style, starting from the front and making straight lines down to the back. I could have chosen to start from any number of the crowns on his head but decided that this was the easiest to keep track of for his first time.

At one point, I came across a small birthmark near the very top of his head and moved the braid to cover it up. James even brought Harris an easy dinner of a bowl of his favorite cereal – you know the one – and a bowl of dry cereal for me to snack on, too. By the time I was done, it was close to Harris’ bedtime and my fingers were cramped, but it was well worth it for the smile that broke out on the boy’s face when I offered him a hand mirror.

James was looking at me with a small smile that tugged at my heart, and then Harris was turning around and wrapping his arms tightly around me neck as he whispered a quiet ‘thank you’ in my ear. My eyes squeezed shut as I wrapped my arms around him.

“You don’t have to thank me, baby,” I whispered. “I’m just glad you like them. And now everyone at school is going to be super jealous because you’ve got the best hair out of everyone.”

Harris pulled back from the hug with a small smile, sheepish as his skin got as flushed as it could. I smiled. My hands came down to hold his as I looked right into his eyes.

“You come to me if they bother you again and I'll give them something to cry about instead,” I said fiercely, the look in my eyes serious. I watched Harris’ bottom lip tremble as he nodded, nose wrinkled, and hugged me again. I smiled, stroking at his new hair. When he pulled away again, he ran to his father.

“Does it look good, Dad?”

James smiled, stroking at his son’s hair just as I had. He leant forward and pressed a kiss to his son’s forehead. “It looks beautiful, buddy. And Yvie is right. If those kids bother you again, then you tell us. We’ll make sure they don’t do it again.”

Harris nodded, holding his father’s hand. “Yvie can do your hair, too. And then we can look the same,” Harris said enthusiastically. James just grinned.

“That sounds awesome, bud. Maybe we can do that tomorrow, but right now, let’s get you to bed.”

Harris wrinkled his nose again and nodded. And then James was picking up his son and walking him upstairs to shower and be tucked into bed. Once they were gone from the room, I yawned, not realizing how tired I was.

My whole body felt heavy, so I moved upstairs, too.

I went into the guest room instead of James’ and got myself ready to go to bed. Getting changed and under the covers.

I don’t know why I chose to sleep in my own room that night. Maybe it was the fact that the afternoon had been exhausting. Maybe it was the fact that being a source of comfort for Harris had speared me with a sense of familiarity with a child that I hadn’t in my life thought I’d feel again.

And it was harder for me than I’d have thought to accept, never mind how much I was learning to love that little boy and his father.

And maybe it was the fact that tying and twisting his braids for the past few hours had made me relive the moments I’d done it for Rio. And maybe thinking of him now, especially after the last few dreams I’d had, was just too much. And I was much to absent, and all up in my head, lost in thoughts of my past to be much entertainment to James tonight.

My ghosts were haunting me. And it was high time I admitted that to myself. Something about being in this house with these two boys, it was triggering something in my memory that I couldn’t handle right then.

And so, I would sleep alone tonight. Get some space. Because while I was going through my thing, it paled in comparison to the much larger, very _real_ thing that was plaguing James and Harris. That very real thing being the death of Sofia Narvaez.

I didn’t want it to feel to anyone like I was trying to take her place. But I was getting so close to the both of them but I couldn’t help but feel I might come across as doing just that.

And that scared me. Especially what I perceived the outcome of that to be.

Interrupting my spiral, James knocked softly on my door and stuck his head inside. I looked up at him from where I’d cocooned beneath my comforter. His eyebrows drew in slightly at seeing me in there instead of his room but he didn’t question it.

Maybe he assumed that I didn’t know if he wanted me in his room tonight, sharing his bed after the afternoon’s events.

He scratched at the back of his neck idly as we watched eachother.

“I, umm… I wanted to thank you,” he said, stepping further into the room until he was sitting next to me on the bed, his body twisted to face mine. I sat up and shrugged.

“Nothing to thank me for,” I said. “I meant that when I said it to Harris.”

James nodded. “I know. But I wanted to thank you, for _my_ sake,” he said, sighing. “You handled today better than I did. You knew what he’d need and you didn’t try to push anything. I guess… I guess I’m just trying to say that I’m glad you were there for him.”

His eyes cast downward to the bed as he bit his lip. I frowned, pursing my lips. I reached out and cupped his jaw with my hand.

“Hey,” I said, “Look at me.”

Reluctantly, he did as asked. When our eyes met, I huffed sympathetically. “You were there for him, too. There isn’t anything in the world that can replace a parent’s love. When he needed you, you were there to hold him and let him cry. And that will have helped him in ways you won’t see yet. Trust me.”

James gave me a nod, his mouth tight and his eyes full of something I couldn’t put my finger on. I gave a soft smile, and then slowly pulled his lips to mine.

Our kiss was brief and light, a juxtaposition to everything I was feeling. And to everything that had happened that day. Everything confusing and complicated.

In the light of that, our kiss was simple and easy. I liked that. And James didn’t try to take it further. We both knew that this was all we could handle. He knew he needed to be alone after the bomb his son had dropped on us.

Surely, he would need time to himself, because the mention of his wife was sure to plague him. I knew it already did, because of his insomniac tendencies, and tonight was surely going to be no different.

So, when we pulled apart, we gave each other knowing smiles and James caressed my fingers for a moment before rising from the bed and walking out. I turned off my bedside light shortly after that, letting myself fall into what I hoped was a dreamless sleep.

.

**I feel heavy after this…**


	10. Nine: In Which She Scores A Touchdown

**NINE: In Which She Scores A Touchdown**

**Yvonne**

The week was fairly uneventful. Morris hadn’t contacted me further about the airport representative, so I could only assume that they hadn’t made it out to the town. …or they couldn’t find it. Haha.

In other news, Harris was having a much better go of it at school. His new braids seemed to have done the trick for the time being, with one little girl even trying to tie a few colorful beads into his hair. He had come home to show me, and it had been a whole mess. But he’d wanted to keep them in, happy that he’d made a new friend, so I re-braided his hair to put the beads back in neatly. I’d never seen the spark in that kid seem so bright. I was quietly overjoyed as my heart swelled for him.

I was glad.

He was a happier kid with each coming day. I was glad for it. And so was James, I could tell.

I hadn’t spent another night away from him either, since Harris had come home crying. I had stumbled across him wide awake the following night when I’d gone down for a glass of water. Then I’d dragged him back to bed and curled up next to him, cradling him so that he might find some semblance of relaxation.

It seemed to have worked, because he slept straight through the night like a baby. Well… after I’d had my way with him, anyway.

Friday afternoon, and I went with James to pick up Harris. My eyebrows drew together when I noticed the commotion happening around the grounds.

“What’s going on?” I voiced, watching a family clad in green jerseys walk hand in hand around the parking lot.

“First game of the season is tonight,” James offered. When I rose my eyebrows at him, he just chuckled. “Football,” he said. “The high school team were the state runners’ up last year and now they’re out for blood.”

There was a glint in his eye that made me bite my lip at him curiously.

“Did you play?” I asked.

James looked over from his steering wheel and I noticed the slight blush on the rise of his cheeks. He nodded once.

“I was a Tight End in my freshman and sophomore seasons. Then when positions opened up, I was a Wide Receiver until I graduated.”

My eyebrows shot up in surprise. James just chuckled, shaking his head. I noticed the faraway look in his eye as he no doubt relived some of his high school memories.

“So… are we going to watch the game then?” I asked.

James grinned, shrugging. “I wasn’t planning on it because Harris isn’t the biggest fan, much to my chagrin. But if you’d like to, then absolutely.”

I could see the twinge of excitement in his eyes.

“Oh, he doesn’t like the game?”

James shrugged again. “Doesn’t understand it too well. I tried to get him into a junior league but he’s still a little young. I was going to reapproach the subject in a few years. He likes the marching band though.”

I smirked at James, not able to say anything more as I felt the door beside me open up. Harris was smiling up at me and I grinned, getting down to let him up.

“Hi, buddy. Your Dad was just telling me about the football game on tonight,” I smiled, helping him into the cab. Harris managed to wrinkle his nose at me.

“Why?”

I grinned. “Well, we were thinking of going along to watch. Would that be alright with you? You might have to tell me who to cheer for, though.”

Harris looked at me unsurely, but then his eyebrows furrowed.

“Do you not know the rules?” his voice was very matter-of-fact for such a small boy. It made me giggle slightly. I shrugged, shuffling my shoulders.

“My folks were basketball lovers more than football, so no, not really…”

Harris considered it for a moment before shrugging. “Alright… but only because you’ve never watched it before,” he said, sounding very serious. Something told me that he liked being given a clear cut job to do and that he was going to take pride in the importance of his new job. I grinned. “We have to go home and feed Stella first, though,” he bargained.

James grinned down at his son, ruffling his hair – well, as much as he could.

“You got a deal, buddy,” he smiled. Then he shifted the truck into gear. When we made it back to the house, James leant me a jersey to wear to the game so that I didn’t look out of place. Harris had his own to wear, which was a little large on him but I smiled, knowing he’d grow into it.

The jersey I wore was obviously too big, so I tucked it into my jeans and put on a pair of boots to go with it. I let my hair hang freely down my back. When Harris wasn’t in the room, James whistled low in his throat and I turned from the mirror to see him smiling appreciatively at me.

Then his arm caught me around the waist and he was pulling me into him. I blushed when his lips met mine easily. I delighted in his kiss for a mere moment, before pulling him away and giving him a teasing slap on the shoulder.

“Stop that, the door is wide open. Harris could walk past at any time,” I grinned, but my eyes were still on his lips. James smiled easily, nodding.

“You’re right.” Then he pulled me in for another quick peck, to which I laughed at. I didn’t know how to take that. Was he okay with the possibility of Harris seeing us together? Should _I_ be okay with that?

I didn’t get the chance to psychoanalyze that any further because James was stepping past me and encouraging me to follow.

When we made it back to the school, it was about an hour before sundown, when the game was supposed to begin. It seemed like the whole town came out for the event – the first home game of the season it seemed.

There were vendors from some of the shops I recognized from the strip mall in town. They were selling their wares from the trays of their four by fours. Other people were grilling by their cars and a lot of people were drinking openly. They weren’t trying to hide anything.

But by the looks of the group of policemen doing the same and enjoying the atmosphere, it seemed this was a normal occurrence. Plus, I guessed that in a small town like this where everyone knew everyone, it was a little harder to act up. And no one wanted to be the talk of the town in that week’s gossip mill.

Speaking of talk of the town, though, I could feel about a million eyes on me. I tried to ignore them, knowing that I was new around these parts, but it was still unnerving.

James had hoisted Harris up onto his hip and was saying hello to random people around us, seeming to know everyone he came across. Eventually, we stood by the car of someone I recognized.

“Yvie,” Scooter – the guy who owned the bowling alley – called, raising his beer. “Nice to see a friendly face around here I bet, besides this guy’s mug.” He gestured to James who had moved to shake his hand. James just rolled his eyes at his friend’s jibes. I grinned.

“Scooter, nice to see you too,” I chuckled. James just grinned.

“Ignore him,” he said. “Once he gets a drink in him, no one can shut him up.” I smiled at James. Scooter just looked at us indignantly.

“That is so not true,” Scooter huffed. “I just happen to believe in having a good time. Unlike _some people_ …”

I laughed at the insinuation, as did the other group of people milling about. I tried not to focus on the meaning I could feel underlying Scooter’s words. He might have been referring to James’ unwillingness to extend his drinking limit, but I decided that was a thought for another day.

I got myself a drink and was offered some random things to eat by Harris, like a chicken wing, and a box of popcorn. I didn’t mind though. The atmosphere of the place was enough to have me smiling.

And then everyone was corralled into the stands. It seemed the whole town had turned out for the game, so seating was sparse. Harris had to take turns sitting in James’ lap or mine. I didn’t miss the side cast looks in people’s eyes at seeing Harris sitting easily with me.

Harris waved at his Aunt Anya at one point, who was sitting with a bearded and heavily tattooed man about two rows ahead of us.

“Okay, so who am I cheering for here?” I asked. Harris looked up at me.

“The Jaguars,” he supplied. I looked over at the team in black and green.

“Our opponents are the Blue Devils,” James said, pointing out the team in their blue and white jersey. I nodded.

For the rest of the game, Harris proceeded to tell me the rules, and even all the plays and tactics that our team were using to score. James had a surprised look on his face as he listened to his son.

I guess Harris did understand the game after all…

The Jaguars ended up winning with a last-minute Hail Mary touchdown in the final thirty seconds. The crowd went absolutely wild and Harris stood to cheer the house down. I laughed, standing with James as the crowd whooped and cheered and moved to rush the field.

The adrenaline of the win was still with us as we made it home. And after Harris was showered and put to bed, I pulled James into his room by his jersey and let the door click shut behind us.

His lips were sewn to mine instantaneously as he turned us so that I fell backwards on the mattress.

“Do you know how sexy it is to see you in my old high school jersey?” he said, his voice nothing more than a harsh whisper against my skin as he pulled apart from me.

I smirked up at him, my eyes sparking in the darkness like I knew his were. I could feel the steel of him through his jeans and yearned for it inside me.

“Do you know how sexy it is to see you love your kid like you do,” I retorted. James just grinned.

“I love that you’re learning to love him, too,” he whispered after a moment. My face softened and my heart clenched, and then I was leaning up slowly to press a peck to James’ nose.

“That kid is amazing. I couldn’t _not_ love him…”

James smiled and leant down to kiss me again, his hands in my hair and tugging slightly. And then my hands were in his jeans and forcing him to shove them off.

I don’t know when I lost my jeans, but I rolled us over so that I could lie on top of him. He shuffled us up the mattress until he rested against the headboard. And then my hands were in his as he let me grind against him. He didn’t enter met yet, just let ourselves find some kind of pleasure in the way his hard body rolled against mine, pure solid muscle.

I moaned breathily when his pelvic bone adjusted against my clit. And then my skin was on fire.

I pulled the jersey over my head by the hem and let it fall to the floor. James’ eyes on my bralette made me want to burn from the inside out.

 _No time,_ I thought. And then I was pulling his jersey off, too. My mouth found its way to his flat, dark nipples and I laved my tongue over them. I made my way down the ridges of his stomach and the planes of his abdomen, my tongue dipping into the ridges between his stark definition.

And then my lips were wrapping around his head and his hands were in my hair. A welcome pressure as my tongue pressed to his slit. A hand cradled beneath, stroking slowly, feeling him grunt at my fingertips.

His hips twitched beneath me and I smiled into him, before my throat swallowed his length. It swelled inside my mouth, making me breath in harshly through my nose. I sucked hard on him, letting him feel exactly how much I loved his body.

How much it got me going.

I bobbed up and down, pumping with my hand what I couldn’t reach with my lips. And then his hips were raising from the bed and he was whispering my name. with a grunt, he came between the seam of my lips and I swallowed every last drop of his cream, savoring the flavor.

When I dragged myself back up his body, I let my titty piercings dance over his skin. He smirked at me and pulled my lips to his to taste me. And then I felt his fingers at my core, dancing and teasing and light as a feather.

And then he was guiding me to him and thrusting himself into my ribcage so that I could feel him resting against the unsteady beat of my thrumming heart.

My breaths were heavy as he rolled us over. His hands were on the headboard, bracing himself. My legs were winding around his waist, my hands on his hips. And then he was driving into me, just short of knocking the headboard against the wall.

And I was throwing my head back hard enough that I was afraid I’d kink my neck like that. I moaned wantonly, for a moment not caring how loud I was.

James had a smile on his lips, tight over his face as he tried to hold himself together. I tightened myself around him, living for the feeling of him stretching my wider and reaching deeper than had been reached in too long of a time.

“James,” I whispered, like a precious chant. Over and over.

I could feel him swell and tighten inside me, not wanting to let go until I could feel the pleasure waving over me. He wanted me to find it first. He wanted me to find it twice. Three times.

While he held himself back with just a shred of control.

Control that he was losing with each hard thrust up into me. I cried out on the third time I found it, my whole body burning with the effort to keep myself together just a little bit more for him.

And then I could see it in his eyes like the burning up of a star. He looked at my desperately and I felt as one of his hands moved from the headboard instead to pinch at my bundle of nerves.

And I cursed as I fell apart for the last time in a writhing mess beneath him. The clench of my body around his was too much and he came too, meeting me thrust for thrust, pleasure for pleasure, release for release.

He whispered my name into my skin and I felt the word burn me alive. He was sewn into the fabric of my being as I could do nothing more than mewl and let him melt with me into the sheets.

He collapsed on top of me, making my body caress around him everywhere once again. And he was shuddering into me as his face was buried into my neck and my hands in his hair and my arms wound around his back.

And I don’t know if we fell asleep like that, but all I knew is that I was held. He held me. And I held him. I didn’t know if he was holding me together, or I him, but somehow I knew that the pieces of myself I’d long been missing were starting to be found.

Or filled. I couldn’t be sure.

All I knew were that the wounds I bore weren’t as deep or as fresh as they used to be. He was the salve and I could feel those wounds closing. Not forgotten, just finally healing.

And for the first time in a long time, I was starting to feel whole again…

.

_“You can’t just say that kind of shit and expect me not to react, Yvonne!”_

_I scoffed at Rio as I looked out of the car window. I watched the streetlights pass me by through the mottled glass of the window. The reds and yellows and greens mixed together from the rain, mesmerizing in their own way._

_I clenched my teeth together, not allowing my silver whip of a tongue to say anything back at him._

_He was pissed at me._

_Because when he’d had to rush me to the hospital in the middle of the night, I’d frozen up and not shown any emotion at the blood staining my bedsheets. He was pissed at me because I’d been awake and just watching it slowly pool, mutely._

_But I couldn’t have helped it. I was so in shock in that moment that I hadn’t known what to do._

_Hours of tests in the hospital later, it turns out that I was fine. As scary as the amount of blood was, the doctor told me that sometimes it was normal for some women to have their period while pregnant._

_That fact blew my mind, because I had thought that the stop of your period was the only way to know for sure that you were pregnant. And that when you_ were _pregnant, having your period was a sign of the pregnancy going wrong._

_But I guess, what the doctor was saying also kind of made sense. It made those stories of women who give birth and have no idea that they were even pregnant, make sense. If periods still happened for some women when they were pregnant, then yeah, there was no sure way of knowing who was in what predicament._

_And Rio was pissed at me because I hadn’t woken him up when I’d started bleeding. And he was pissed at me for not saying anything in the car on the way to the emergency room. And he was pissed at me for barely saying two words to the doctor._

_And now he was pissed at me because of the one remark I’d uttered quietly in what I thought was a safe space in the car. Because I’d been scared, and I’d known that he’d been scared, too. But I’d confused our as-of-late intimacy as something of a safety net, and that he might be feeling some of the things that I was._

_And so, into the silence, I’d asked if I could share with him. With earnest eyes, he’d inhaled deeply, probably because I’d said practically nothing up until then. I’d asked if I could bare a piece of my soul because I thought that he might be on the same page as me, and that his anger might have stemmed from the same place as mine, more angry at himself than at me._

_Boy had I been wrong._

_So, with a slow tear tracking its way down my cheek as I looked down at my lap where my hands fidgeted, I’d tasted blood in my mouth with my words. But that could have just been the taste of guilt. I wasn’t sure._

_“When I woke up and saw the blood… I felt_ relieved _,” I’d whispered into the darkness._

_I hadn’t dared look at Rio, because the second I heard the horrified hitch in his breath, I knew we were polar opposites. And I knew that right then he wouldn’t just be pissed at me, he’d hate me._

_A visceral ugly feeling that made me want to shrink into the former shell of myself._

_I held a hand over Bean. The feeling of relief had been so brief, that I could have even ignored it. But it was the guilt that followed that feeling that had kept me so pinned in place, watching as the blood seeped into my linens._

_It was the guilt that kept my lips stitched closed while the doctors and nurses swarmed around me to try and figure out what was wrong._

_It was the guilt that made tears well in my eyes when the doctor told me that Bean was okay. It was the guilt over finally realizing my true feelings about this pregnancy that were making my gut twist with turmoil._

_It was my guilt that made me want to put the whole earth between Rio and myself, because I knew from that one hitch of his breath that he didn’t understand me. That he never would. That he’d never understand my brief relief, because he wasn’t the one with Bean growing inside him._

_He wasn’t the one to have to make the final decision._

_He could up and leave at a moment’s notice. And I couldn’t._

_And he didn’t understand why that was making me lose my mind. Because Bean was taking my agency, and had taken it since the moment I’d seen that pregnancy test. And I was only just realizing it now._

_I was only realizing it with Mother Nature’s warnings and her signs that it might have been all over tonight if I’d stayed sitting in that bed even a minute longer._

_It was only in that moment that I’d woken up, and then truly woken up. Woken up from the haze of the last almost seven months. The haze that had kept me in two minds about the pregnancy._

_And Rio would never understand that._

_And it was in that moment that I saw him like I saw my parents. And realized that he saw me the same way they did._

_The vessel. To be used and discarded once my ‘purpose’ had been served. Like I would never amount to anything more than that._

_“How can I not? When you don’t know a thing about what I’ve gone through,” I said, looking out at the passing streets. I didn’t dare look at Rio, knowing instead that his fingers were clutched tightly over the steering wheel as he drove us home in angry silence._

_Home…_

_My home. When had it become his, too, though?_

_And it was my home, but it wasn’t Bean’s. I hadn’t even given a thought to where he might go, or what he might need. There was no evidence in my apartment that I was expecting, save for the discarded rubbish here and there from late night cravings. The place wasn’t clean by any stretch, but that wasn’t a marker of a pregnant tenant, if anything, they were just the same living conditions of your run-of-the-mill slob._

_Had I kept my apartment that way for a reason?_

_“Bullshit, I don’t know a thing, Yvonne!” Rio seethed, his voice dark and deep. “I’ve been with you for every step of this.”_

_I rolled my eyes, leaning my cheek against the cool of the car window, like I could melt into the tracks of the raindrops if I tried hard enough. Like I could become part of the cycle of the rain, just so that I could be free. Or stuck in the loop and unable to make decisions for myself. Especially not the hard ones I was facing._

_“You don’t get that you can still have a life after this and I can’t. Bean will be my life,” I said, my voice low and empty. As empty as I was sure to be. “Everything I ever wanted to do is gone from me now, because he will consume me…”_

_“Yvonne–”_

_“No!” I cut him off. I turned and looked at him. He needed to see the despair in my eyes. “No! You don’t get to judge me and tell me how to feel about any of this. You don’t get to make me feel guilty, any more than I already feel. You don’t get to make me into the monster parent who can’t think to want her own child._

_“You don’t get to tell me my life isn’t over when it’s not going to be you who is running after this kid for the next twenty years. You don’t get to be the one who tells me that this child is a gift, because it’s not_ you _whose life will be on hold. We’re not together. You’re under no obligation._

 _“You’re disregarding my wants and my feelings and my own desire for my future. You and everyone else are putting this baby ahead of_ me _! You know that we are both not ready for this. I mean, we’re still practically kids for Christ’s sake! Playing dress up at the adult’s table._

_“You wouldn’t even be sitting in this car right now if he was planted inside me. You were done with me that night, and I was so fucking done with you. We would have lived out our lives happy having never spoken to each other again, and why should he have changed that!? Why is it that the fact that he’s coming mean that we have to suddenly be buddy-buddy with each other?_

_“You don’t know me. And you don’t care about me. Otherwise, you’d be a little more empathetic to what I’m going through, and you’d actually listen when I said the things I say. You don’t get to rip me apart for the tiny millisecond that I felt relief, when you don’t know the guilt that’s been crushing me for every fucking moment since then._

_“You don’t get to make me the villain for the feelings that I can’t control. You don’t get to dictate what kind of life I should lead. Because you don’t know me, Rio. You don’t fucking know me…”_

_The car was stopped outside my apartment. I bolted out the door, as much as one heavily pregnant girl can bolt. I stormed up the front steps to the lobby door and fumbled with the keys to let me inside and out of the drizzle._

_I didn’t want to, I wanted to walk into my apartment without a second thought, but I couldn’t help it. I turned to face Rio with tear stained cheeks. He was standing next to the car with a stony look in his eyes._

_I could already tell that he’d only heard from my rant what he wanted to. And then I huffed as I watched him pocket his keys and walk off down the sidewalk with his hands shoved into his pockets._

_He didn’t care that it was raining._

_And in that moment, I didn’t care if I never saw him again. And I didn’t._

_I watched out the window for the next week. His car stayed where it was. He didn’t come knocking. And then one day, between one episode of_ The Kardashians _and the next, it was gone, and he along with it._

_And I knew in that moment that it would truly be just Bean and I… until the end…_

_._

**And I feel sadness in this Chili’s tonight…**


	11. Ten: In Which She Is Berated

**TEN: In Which She Is Berated**

**Yvonne**

“Yvie! It’s happening! It’s happening!”

I looked up from my laptop in a hurry to see Harris speeding to the foot of the stairs, fast enough that I worried he’d trip over and I’d never catch him in time. He was half dressed in his pajamas and his hair was still wet.

“What’s happening?” I said, eyes wide as the boy raced out the back screen-door and into the darkness. I stood up as James was rushing down the stairs after his son, his son’s shirt in his hand.

I turned to him with my mouth gaping like a fish.

“The calf is being born, I think,” he said, almost breathless as he caught my wrist in his hand and directed me out to the barn.

“Wait, but how do you know?” I asked, almost tripping over my feet as I was caught up in the haste of father and son.

In answer to my question, a long baying sound emanated from the barn and I nodded to myself. “Right. Okay,” I laughed. “How did I not hear that before?”

James just laughed, but his pace quickened to catch after his son. We burst into the barn and down to the end pen to see Harris by the momma cow’s head and stroking down her nose.

James went to get a bucket of water and came back wearing a pair of long gloves. I shuddered to think of him having to reach in anywhere and hoped that the momma could do it all on her own.

I shivered at the thought of having to push like that ever again.

“Harris, maybe come away from there, baby,” I said, holding out a hand to him. I was worried he might get knocked over suddenly if the cow were to stand up. But then she bayed again and put her head in Harris’ lap and I sighed.

“It’s okay,” he cooed at her and it made me smile a little. James gave me a small smile.

“He’s fine to sit there. She won’t move much, and besides, she’s used to him being around anyway,” he said.

“Oh…”

James just smiled at me. I didn’t realise my hands were shaking until he put a hand on my arm and looked right into my eyes.

“You alright?”

I bit my lip, looking over at the cow again, at the swell of her belly and the tightness in her legs as she moved slightly into a better position. Memories shook through me, but instead I just swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded at James.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” My voice was tight, and I hoped he didn’t pick up on it. That he might instead just pay attention to the calving going on before him.

We stood around for another fifteen minutes or so. I watched James grow more agitated by the second.

“Is everything ok–”

“It just shouldn’t be taking this long,” he said, his nerves getting the better of him as he interrupted me. He gave me a sheepish apologetic smile. “Sorry. I think I am going to have to help her out, though.”

“Oh, is that quite common to have to help for their first calf?”

Harris looked up to answer that one. “Depends on the cow. Alice is just a bit small though.”

I smiled down at him, nodding.

‘Okay, is there anything you’ll need me to do, then?”

James shook his head at that one, waving me off. “No, it should go fairly quickly after I give her a boost.”

I nodded, feeling a little helpless. But these two seemed to know exactly what they were doing. And James was right. Within minutes, he’d not needed to reach into the cow. She started pushing on her own after he massaged the calf down her back.

Her adjustment meant that I could see the sack beginning to come out, pushed out first by one little black leg. The head was next to follow, and James reached forward to uncover it’s head from the sac so that it could breath.

Then she moaned lowly as she got the rest of it out in two pushes. Harris cheered at the sight of it and quickly cleared out of the way as Alice the cow stood up. She swayed once slightly before we all backed out of the way so that she could nuzzle at her baby.

“It’s a boy!” Harris cheered. I grinned, my cheeks red from having witnessed this. My smile was too wide to contain and James gave me a knowing smile. Alice nursed at her baby boy, licking at his head. James maneuvered the bucket of water a little closer to Alice so that she could drink something.

Harris was doing a happy dance over by the other side of the pen. I giggled at the sight.

“What are you gonna name him, buddy?” James asked, looking over at his son. Harris stopped dancing and pretended to think it over for a bit, pursing his lips. Then his eyes got that cheeky spark in them that I was growing to love.

“Hmm... Mr. Pickles.” The boy’s voice was so confident and unwavering that I couldn’t help but feel my eyebrows creasing with laughter. 

“Mr. Pickles? Why Mr. Pickles?” I laughed. James just grinned as Harris moved around the pen to pet tentatively at Alice’s head, not wanting to get too much into her space that she might feel her baby was threatened.

James just gave me a look and tilted his head up once, crossing his arms over his chest. “He’s making a cheeseburger,” he supplied with a shrug. I choked on the air in my windpipe. 

“He’s... he’s what?” I laughed out, shocked.

James just grinned, nodding like it was an argument that he lost a _long_ time ago. “He’s making a cheeseburger,” he repeated, smiling down at his son and the calf. “He always names the calves and the last few have been in the theme of a cheeseburger recipe. Like, we had a Bunny, and a Monterey Jack–“

“–And Patty!” Harris interrupted with a wide grin.

James laughs, nodding his head. I giggled into my hand, my eyes wide as I watched the two ridiculous boys.

“I mean... I guess that’s kind of morbidly humorous...” I conceded with a smirk.

James just grinned, nodding his head. “Yep, it is. But I doubt it’ll stop until we have a mustard and a ketchup calf too. And then I suppose we’ll move onto some other pattern of naming calves. I will say this though, it makes them a little easier to keep track of.”

I laughed hard at that. And then I moved to stand by Harris. He gently took my hand and moved it to stroke down the side of Alice’s neck. I smiled softly and pulled Harris into my side with my other hand. I loved the way that he let me embrace him this way. My stomach clenched at it.

James watched over the two of us with a look in his eyes that I still couldn’t put my finger on. Happy yet still kind of curious, like he almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing. I gave him a bright smile back.

And then Harris’ hand was next to mine, stroking at the cow. We stayed out in the barn for another hour or so, and then James asked if I could take Harris back up to bed.

He was going to stay with the new mother and her calf for a while, to keep an eye on them. He took my arm and pulled me close to him for a moment, his lips meeting the shell of my ear. Then he whispered he’d be lying next to me in the bed before the morning sun came.

Knowing him, I only half-believed him. But then Harris was guiding me back to the house and I was tucking him in, and I was myself going to sleep with a content smile on my face.

A smile that was only caused by these two boys and their life that I’d gate crashed, but that now felt equal parts my life, too. Was that weird? Seeing as I’d only been there with them a matter of weeks?

It was too premature an idea, and yet, one that filled me with a burst of happiness. I didn’t know what I was going to do about that, yet. But right then, I was content to fall asleep in the feeling, and the security that the devoted father I was beginning to like was going to wake up wrapped in my arms the next morning.

.

_“Please tell me you’re kidding?”_

I rolled my eyes at Cece. I was sititing in James’ guest bedroom with my laptop open, in the midst of a video call with my sister after she’d texted me demanding my company.

She felt I’d been neglecting her. I couldn’t exactly say she was wrong. My mind had been so preoccupied with the Williams boys over the last few weeks that I’d momentarily forgotten I had an actual life outside of their ranch.

“No. I am not kidding.”

 _“Yvie, that’s so unbelievably_ not _healthy that I don’t even know what advice to give you right now.”_ Cece was exasperated as she watched me. I just grinned back at her.

“I don’t see what’s so wrong with sleeping with him,” I shrugged. “Not like there’s much else to do in this town,” I joked. Cecelia just pursed her lips at me.

_“At least tell me he’s good…”_

I didn’t answer her, just smirked into the camera and bumped my eyebrows a few times. It did the trick, she stopped being her overbearing and protective side of her personality and instead burst into laughter as the crass and sex-positive side of herself.

 _“You’re downright dirty, Yvonne,”_ she smirked. I grinned. I wouldn’t deny that. The sex was good, but that didn’t mean I needed to divulge to my sister just _how good_ it was. I mean, what was that saying? Once you go black…

“Nah. I don’t know what it is about him, but I think I’m really starting to like him. I’ve never connected with something like this before,” I shrugged, blushing slightly and hoping that she couldn’t tell over the dim light of my camera. “And I really like his kid. He’s… different. But in like a good way.”

Cece frowned at me. _“Do you think it’s such a good idea, though? Getting involved in the middle of a family like that? I mean, getting close to them like that. Especially the kid. I mean, you don’t know how much longer you’re really going to be there. You have to go back to work sometime, and no one is really believing that you couldn’t just hire another car and get to the airport and go home…”_

I rolled my eyes, frowning. I didn’t want to be interrogated. I just wanted to have fun.

“Believe it or not Cec, I _have_ actually given thought to all the things you’ve mentioned. But, I don’t know. It’s not like I can just _not_ get friendlier with Harris. The kid is too loveable, and besides, I figure if James is okay with me getting so close to his son then it must be alright. I mean, he knows him better than I do, so it’s really more up to him. You know?”

Cece didn’t look convinced.

“And as for the work stuff, I’m taking my vacation time until the crap-heap car I rented gets checked out by the airport staff. I technically actually have to be here to defend myself at any given moment that they might show up asking questions and I have to show proof as to how the damn car breaking down wasn’t my fault,” I shrugged.

Cecelia still didn’t look impressed with my excuses. I didn’t care. She wasn’t the boss of me, nor was she my mother.

“But enough about me,” I waved her off. Our whole hour-long conversation so far had consisted of nothing more than Cece dragging information about James out of me until I’d confessed about the true nature of our relationship. “What’s going on with you? How’s that sexy new trainer?”

Cece just shrugged. _“Oh, you know how these things go. Guess he wasn’t into me in the same way I was into him. Plus, after I’ve gotten to know him better, I think we’re just better off as friends.”_

I grinned slyly. “Translation: You slept with him and it wasn’t that good?”

Cece’s jaw dropped. _“I’m offended by the accusation,”_ she laughed, but her eyes didn’t lie. And she didn’t correct me. _“No, I really do think we’re better off as friends. And he was perfectly good in bed,”_ she rolled her eyes. _“Besides, I think I’ve got my eye on someone else now…”_

My eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Ooo juicy, do tell,” I smiled.

Cece just grinned. _“Well, there’s this new client who is coming in. She’s only just gotten the all-clear from her doctor to start slimming and toning her new figure into one she loves.”_

I smiled, nodding. My ears didn’t miss the mention of her new crush being a ‘she’. Cece had never explicitly told me of her sexual orientation, but I’d always kind of known. Plus, I knew Cece had her own reasons for not speaking to our parents. 

But on top of that little nugget of new information, I could tell that there was something that my sister wasn’t telling me.

“And…?” I prodded.

Cece shrugged. _“Oh, you know. I think she’s great. I volunteered to be her personal trainer as soon as I saw her, but…”_

“But, what?”

Cece frowned, looking down from the camera and away from me. _“Oh, you know, I’m just not even sure I’m her type. I mean, she told me she dated girls before, but that was before she had her surgery and I don’t know if that means she’s still swinging that way, you know?”_

I frowned. “How do you mean? Just ask her.”

Cece shook her head a little once. _“No, I mean her_ surgery _,”_ Cece emphasized, begging me to understand, _“might be a change of appearance on the outside, but I don’t know if she was making a change for everything else, too, you know…?”_

My eyes widened and I did a mental slap as I finally realized what Cece was trying to tell me.

“Oh, you mean she’s Trans?” I shrugged.

Cece bit her lip, watching me closely before nodding once. _“Yeah, I mean, I’ve been keeping it to myself because she told me in confidence when we were doing measurements, and weight and diet planning because she wanted me to be in on why her results might be a little different.”_

I nodded. Then I frowned. “Wait, were you afraid I wouldn’t approve of you being attracted to a trans woman? She’s just like any other girl.”

Cecelia bit her lip and I could see the vulnerability in her eyes. She shrugged once. _“I don’t know… some people are weird about that stuff. I know she’s just like any other girl, but some people have stupid weird hang-ups about the spectrum of pansexuality and who I can be attracted to…”_

I smiled at my sister down the camera, hoping she could see how sincerely happy I was for her. “Cecelia. I love you. I accept you. And I’m sure that whenever I get to meet this lovely girl that I will love her, too.”

 _“Yeah, yeah, I know,”_ Cecelia huffed at me, rolling her eyes and wiping away at her undereye. She had always been the one uncomfortable with these kinds of _emotionally charged_ topics. _“Okay, but you have to promise that when you do meet her, you’ll wait for her to tell you herself, because I technically wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about this.”_

I smiled and mimed zipping my lips shut and throwing away the key. “Secret’s safe with me, babe,” I smiled.

Our conversation took an easy route after that as we discussed anything and everything. That was, until Harris came knocking on the door to tell me that dinner was ready. He wore a sheepish little smile like he was afraid he’d disrupted me too much. That, and I think he was nervous to be heard over the video. I smiled at him and waved him over.

“I want you to come and meet my sister,” I smiled, waving him over. Harris blushed a little, and I could see him reverting into his shy little shell that he loved living in so much. But he came over and I tilted the camera towards him.

I frowned when I saw Cece’s eyes widen shockingly for a millisecond at the sight of Harris, before her mouth then spread into a warm smile as she waved.

 _“Hi!”_ she smiled. _“Yvie has told me so much about you. I’m Cece.”_

Harris gave a nervous smile and waved. “My name is Harris,” he said politely. “It’s nice to meet you.”

 _“I love your hair,”_ Cece smiled gently at the little boy and my heart warmed. However skeptical she was about my relationship with the Williams family, it seemed she wasn’t immune to their lovability.

Harris grinned at that, working the charm that he didn’t know he had. The charm that was sure to break a few hearts when he got older…

“Thankyou,” he smiled. “Yvie did them for me. Eliza at school gave me the beads.” He tilted his head sideways so that Cece could see, to which Cece gave the appropriate response and fawned over them, making Harris blush. But I could see the smile in his eyes at hearing how much she liked them.

I was glad to see that this one small change for him was beginning to mend the wound that those bullies had set in him. It was building his confidence back up and I felt so privileged to get to see it, let alone be a part of it.

And then Harris got off the bed, waving a goodbye to Cece in the fashion of any young elementary schooler when there was food waiting to be eaten.

“Bye, Cece,” he called, to which Cece grinned and waved him off. I looked over at Harris.

“I’ll be down in just a second, buddy,” I smiled. Harris nodded and closed the door behind him. When I turned back to Cece, she had an eyebrow raised curiously at me.

 _“Well… he’s very cute,”_ she admitted. I couldn’t put my finger on the look in her eyes and my brows furrowed at her.

“Yeah, he is.”

Cece nodded, looking at me closely, critically, for just a second. She even leaned in closer to the camera for a second, making me raise an eyebrow at her.

“What?”

Cecelia frowned, then shook her head once. _“Nothing. I’ve, uh… I’ve gotta go and it sounds like you’ve got dinner waiting for you,”_ she smiled, shaking her head and her features changed back to as they’d been. _“So, I’ll talk to you whenever?”_

I decided to forget about whatever she’d been searching for and instead nodded my head. “Yeah. Love you,” I smiled. “Go get your girl!”

Cece just laughed and sent me a kiss before waving. I waved back and then we both signed off. When I shut my laptop and was able to sit in silence for a moment, my brows furrowed.

What the hell had she been looking at so intently? I had no clue. I sighed, shaking it off and putting it out of my mind. Instead I would go downstairs and eat the lovely prepared meal for dinner and hang out with two of the coolest boys I’d ever met.

.

I threw my head back, wincing only slightly as it hit against the tile of the shower. I had a leg thrown over James’ shoulder as his lips were buried between my legs, positively torturing me.

I was beginning to like the hours that Harris was away at school almost as much as I enjoyed the hours that the kid was home and we could hang out.

But right now, it was his daddy’s turn to hold my full attention.

And hold it, did he just. And he did it well.

I let out a long, unencumbered moan as he pushed his tongue into my kitty in slow thrusts that made my toes curl. The sound of the shower was like a loud waterfall rushing in my ears, making them ring as I focused on my orgasm.

Mt chest rose and fell quickly and James’ fingers dug into the skin of my ass, holding my core flush against his lips. His teeth grated just a touch against my clit and I shuddered into him. And then my hands were in his hair, pressing him into me and forcing him to devour me.

Not that he was complaining.

My body undulated in his hands, back and forth in the same rhythm as his ever talented tongue. His skilled fingers worked me over as he pulled and teased at my supple skin and drove my mind mad.

And then I felt it right there, my toes dangling just over the precipice, ready for me to jump… and he leaned away.

I gasped, frustrated as his lips left me. His hooded eyes were even darker than normal when he stood up and eyed me. My taut nipples pressed against the dripping skin of his chest, but his hands were still on my ass.

He licked at his lips as he squeezed me, making me wriggle in his arms, and making my core bump against his. If I wasn’t mistaken, I detected a small possessive growl travelling through his throat. And fuck me if that didn’t turn me on.

And then his hands were on my hips and he was turning me around. My front was pressed up against the cool tile, sending a shiver through my body as he closed himself in behind me. He used a foot to move mine further apart, and then the ghost of his finger travelled along my swollen pussy lips, making me shudder.

The cold zing of the shower wall against my titty piercings was a thrill I’d felt like no other. My cheek was pressed flat against the wall, and then my hands were pressed on the wall beside my head.

James then laid his hands over mine and dragged them up above my head, twining our fingers from behind.

And his rock-hard cock was at the crack of my ass, dragging across my wet skin and teasing me. Teasing himself. Teasing the both of us to no end.

My breaths turned ragged when his lips found my neck and suckled at the spot just below my ear. It sent a rush through me and straight down to my core and I whimpered needily for him.

Because I did need him. I desperately needed him to thrust himself inside me, otherwise I was positive I’d combust.

But the asshole took his time. One hand moved back down to my kitty, stroking and pinching and teasing me. I jolted when he pressed his thumb against my back hole just once, testing how I reacted. When I felt all the hairs on my arms raise, I was for the first time in my life curious about the one sexual endeavor that had always frightened me.

Maybe some other time, I’d finally experiment back there, if James wanted to.

Today I wasn’t ready for that, though. Instead, wanting him and wanting him _now,_ I reached behind me and grabbed at his steel, squeezing at his base harshly and making him huff out a hard breath.

His lips were on the back of my head, pressing a kiss into my hair like he got the message I was trying to send. I felt him shaking with laughter behind me and I felt a slow smile creep to my face as I swiped my thumb over his slit and massaged at his slick head with my hand.

When he thrust into my hand, I let go, sensing that he was about to give me what I so badly wanted. I raised myself onto my tip toes and his fingers squeezed at the hand we still had intertwined. I smiled into the wall, turning my cheek so that he could descend his lips to kiss the corner of that smile.

I let out a gasp of a moan when his head slid against my core before delving easily inside my drenched little kitty. And then I came off my tip toes and let him fall even deeper inside me.

“Yes,” I moaned out, low and long. James was chuckling deeply behind me, his lips at my ear. I felt secure with his whole warm body wrapped around mine, but then frustrated again. Because once he was seated fully inside me, he had apparently decided that that was as far as we would go.

Annoyed, and letting him know I was, I gave an impatient little whimper and wiggled my ass against his pelvic bone, making him grunt and bite into my shoulder.

I grinned at that, and then he was moving. It was slow, but it was a start. It would get me there, because I liked the slow stuff when it came from him. Because he knew how to manipulate his control to make me lose mine. And boy did he have a shit ton of control to spare.

When we found our rhythm, my whole body quaked. I pushed myself back against him, and then I was bent at the hips, my hands still pressed against the wall, and his hands were at my hips as he drove himself into me.

I cried out against him as he knocked me. This position made it feel so raw, and my fingers tried to grip at the slippery tile, but it felt like I was grasping at straws. Exactly how it was feeling to try to keep a hold of my control.

And then it slipped through my fingers and my head drooped low as I almost fell to my knees. My release crashed through me like a freight train, surprising the shit out of me.

I moaned out his name and James grunted mine as he found his release, too. And then I was being pulled up and around and his lips were crashing into mine and our hands were everywhere as I tried with all my might to make him mine.

And then his cock found my core again, like magnets, and he was slowly thrusting through my aftershocks as I moaned into his lips. His kiss consumed me and his hands were on my face, holding me with him. While mine were wrapped around him, fingers splayed across the fine tuned muscle of his back, feeling them roll with every movement as his chest pressed to mine.

He tasted like nothing but freshness and cool, like the water raining over us, flattening my hair to my head and his curls to his chest. I moaned and then my hands were sliding up his neck and around to grip into his hair as he kissed me.

And he kissed me.

And kissed me.

And healed me.

.

**They’re so raw and beautiful and I want it.**


	12. Eleven: In Which She Leaves Her Heart Behind

**ELEVEN: In Which She Leaves Her Heart Behind**

**Yvonne**

_A week past my due date, I was stressed out and pissed off._

_I hadn’t seen hide or hair of Rio in weeks since my miscarriage scare. Save for once when I thought I saw him getting into his car at the grocery store, but it was only the back of his head so I couldn’t have been sure._

_Bean was huge now, as was my anxiety. My doctor had told me to try all the ways I could to induce labor now that I was officially late. And so I’d been trying as long of a walk as I could stand, spicy foods, massages and acupuncture, but nothing had worked._

_There was one other thing that I might’ve tried if Rio had still been around – sex – because it was the number one way to induce labor. But I didn’t have anyone around at my disposal for that anymore. It was extremely frustrating._

_Even more frustrating was knowing for certain that Rio had taken my outburst as having decided to have nothing to do with Bean. He’d bailed after my rant of confusion over my feelings. He didn’t know of my plans for after I gave birth, although to be fair, neither did I._

_But the fact that I was now facing this alone was only making me more conflicted about what I was going to do._

_Cecelia had taken a few weeks off from work and come to live with me in case of an emergency, because after countless nights of me crying myself to sleep over the phone, she’d known that I wasn’t in a good enough place to face this shit alone._

_But, she was out getting food and I’d been bored and restless in my apartment, so I’d decided to take a short walk around the block. By the time I made it back, Cece was pacing worried around my apartment. At seeing me come through the door, she let out a curse._

_“Jesus, Yvie! You can’t be going out alone right now,” she fussed, moving to wrap an arm around me and guide me to the sofa. “What if something had happened and you couldn’t reach me? You didn’t even take your phone with you,” she pursed her lips. I sighed, my lips shaking from the cold outside._

_Cece unwrapped the scarf from my neck and moved me to lean against her, her arms wrapping around me. I hadn’t realized I’d been shivering. My pregnancy brain had made me go out in the snow without shoes. Thank god I’d been wearing socks but that still wasn’t really enough._

_Cecelia drew my space heater towards us and directed my feet towards it to thaw. I sighed, closing my eyes and letting myself lean against her._

_“I’m sorry,” I muttered into her shirt. Cece just frowned and stroked a hand down my hair._

_“I know you are, babe, but you’ve got to be a little more careful than this. I mean, no shoes? Really? You’ll be lucky if you don’t catch hypothermia,” she sighed. I found it in myself to give a small chuckle, before shaking my head and turning to press my cold frozen nose into her shoulder._

_She shuddered slightly but didn’t move away._

_“I just… I needed to clear my head,” I said, my voice low and muffled by the material of her turtleneck. Cece sighed, nodding._

_“I know you do, babe,” she said, her voice low and comforting to the meek tone of my own. “I know you do…”_

_“I mean, I just don’t know what to do…” I said. “I never thought myself much of the parenting type, and this…_ pregnancy _hasn’t really changed any of those thoughts. And now I’m all alone…”_

_Cece was silent for a while, just holding me. The frown on my lips triggered the tears in my eyes and I sniffled into my sister. She held me tighter._

_“You’re not alone, babe,” she sighed into my hair. Instinctively, I knew she was right. She had always been there for me, and I knew she’d help out where she could, but I still felt hollow inside. I had thought mothers weren’t supposed to get depression until_ after _they’d given birth, not before. And yet here I was._

_“And as for the unsurety over being a mother, I already know you’ll be great. In your own way,” she assured me. I bit my lip. I didn’t see a point in trying to contradict her in the way my mind had instantly. I didn’t feel like making my own sister hate me like everyone else seemed to._

_We stayed like that for a while, and then when I felt the warmth of the heater finally spread through me and up to my clenched fingertips, Cecelia huddled me through to my bedroom and swaddled me like she’d learnt to do in my Lamaze and mommy classes._

_And the next thing I knew, I woke up screaming._

_Cecelia came running, and at seeing the expression of pure agony on my face, she nodded and hurried over. My body felt like it was being ripped in two, tears streaming down my face as the clench of my contractions forged through me._

I’m not ready. I’m not ready. _Fuck_ , I’m not ready, _my mind chanted. But it was happening. Bean was coming and there was nothing I could do._

_“Come on, baby,” Cecelia said, her voice soothing as she helped me sit up. “He’s coming. We have to get to the hospital. Deep breaths, remember?”_

_I vaguely remembered understanding what she was saying as she wrapped an arm around my shoulders and helped me up, supporting me. Hastily, we made it to the front door, me huddling with discomfort as I could feel my body readying itself for the next wave of pure pain about to be inflicted on me._

_Cece moved me to lean against the wall before gathering our coats and hats and scarves and whatever other layers she could, forcing my arms and body into them. Her hands were careful and methodic where mine shook uncontrollably._

_I wasn’t sure labor was supposed to feel like this. But then again, I didn’t think most mothers were gripped by the absolute terror that I was feeling cloud over me like an anvil was sitting on my chest._

I’m not ready. I’m not ready.

_Cecelia picked up my bag, the one with all the things I’d need that she’d had ready to go for the last week, and then she was helping me out of my apartment and down the stairs to her car._

_The drive to the hospital was short, theoretically, but Bean managed to make me want to claw my eyes out on the drive as another contraction threatened to split me in two._

_I could tell Cece was trying to keep a level head, but there was panic in her eyes and the way she gripped at the steering wheel. She was thinking what I was thinking._

My contractions are too close together. Something must be wrong… _Shit,_ I’m not ready.

_My hands cradled at Bean as Cece found a parking spot close to the entrance and then was hurrying me inside._

_“We need a wheelchair,” she called to the desk nurse on duty as we walked in. “And a doctor. She’s going into labor.”_

_The desk nurse jumped right into action, finding a wheelchair for me to sink into, my eyes clenched shut and my lips were parted as I tried to focus on my breathing like I’d been told to do. That shit wasn’t helping._

_Cece was wheeling me somewhere as the nurse led us away._

_“Is this her first pregnancy,” the nurse asked my sister, obviously clueing into the fact that I was unable – and equally unwilling – to say a word right now._

_“Yes.”_

_“And how far apart are her contractions?” the nurse asked, her voice calm like she’d asked these questions a hundred times._

_“About seven or eight,” Cece said after looking at the watch on her wrist._

_“There’s something wrong with him,” I managed to gasp out. The nurse looked down at me, surprise and alarm running clearly in her gaze. And then before I could elaborate, the pain took me again. I screamed out and the nurse winced slightly before nodding at Cece._

_We were directed to a private room and once my contraction subsided, I was helped onto the bed._

_“Alright honey, I’m just going to measure your cervix to see how far along we are,” the nurse said, handling a glove. I nodded and Cece helped me remove my pajama pants._

_The nurse’s fingers were warm, but I could barely focus on that. Her eyes widened slightly as she brought her hand away._

_“Okay, so you’re already at about eight centimeters. How long did you say you’d been in labor for?” she asked._

_“No more than an hour,” Cece said, her brows furrowed as she clasped her hand with mine. “She was asleep._

_The nurse frowned and looked at me. “And this is your first pregnancy? That’s quite unusual that you didn’t notice any other signs of labor…”_

_I couldn’t find it in me to reply, I didn’t know what I was supposed to say to that. My lungs burned with the force of my cry as another contraction tore through me._

_“Please! Get him out of me,” I cried out, Cece’s fingers white as I gripped at them. “Somethings wrong with him! I need him out!”_

_The nurse pursed her lips, her brows furrowed in concern as she nodded at me and tried to pat my arm sympathetically._

_“I’ll be back momentarily with a doctor,” she said, looking at Cece. “See if you can get her changed into a gown while I’m gone?”_

_Cece nodded but I was barely paying attention. My whole body was on fire, like I was at the center of a volcano and I was about to explode with the eruption. Or maybe I would cause it. I barely registered my sobs._

_And then there were too many people in the room, crowding me. The lights were too bright between the blur of my tears and the blotchy faces crowding my vision only made me want to holler from the discomfort._

_“We need to get her into a delivery room,” a man voiced. “The baby is breaching.”_

_I gasped and then I was being wheeled out. I_ knew _something had been wrong. Breaching. My Bean was upside down. He’d suffocate in there._

_And then they were calling my name, their echoes and commands blending together into a wall of sound that made my ears scream._

_Then I was being told to push. But carefully._

How does one push a baby out of their vagina _carefully?!_

_But I did it. I pushed. I pushed until it felt like my heart feel out of me with my child._

My child _._

_And then I could hear panic and beeping, but I couldn’t hear a scream from the newborn like you were supposed to. Or did that only happen in movies? Surely, he wasn’t supposed to be this quiet…_

My Bean. _My boy…_

_I could hear the shuffling of feet and charged voices and I could hear Cece trying to stifle a cry beside me. I lifted my head, trying to open my eyes._

_“Someone cut the cord, he can’t breathe!” I heard Cecelia cry out. “He’s fucking blue!”_

_Panic surged through me. I felt like my heart was dying. He was dying in their arms. Why weren’t they doing something._

_I managed to pry my bleary eyes open long enough to see the doctor cradling my heart, my boy, my Bean. The doctor had two fingers on his chest, pumping slightly up and down. My boy’s eyes were closed._

_Cece was gripping my hand, and with the other, I managed to cover my lips and the cry that tore through me. The heartbroken almost scream of a broken heart. A broken boy._

_It seemed like the entire world slowed down and every person in the room waited with baited breath for something…_ anything… _any fucking sign from my Bean that he was okay. That my heart was whole._

_And then, like a siren splitting through the dead calm of night, he opened his lips and gasped and sucked air into his precious lungs. And then he was screaming the house down, and the collective gasp from everyone in the room besides me was like swallowing his first breath and his first scream._

_But I was as frozen as the night I’d woken to my bed full of blood._

_I was gripped by the fear and the loss that had held me prisoner in those few fucking minutes that I’d thought he was gone from this world forever. Because that would have been my fault._

_That would have been my Karma coming to fuck me over by killing the baby I’d never wanted._

_And now I was surprised to be full of the very same relief I’d felt momentarily at thinking he was gone the first time. But the relief now was for the opposite. Because he was okay and he was screaming and his little brown face was filling with the color he should have been born with in the first place._

_And Cece’s arms were around me, gripping me tight, shaking me slightly from my reverie as we watched the doctor hand him to the nurses and they cleaned him up, looking down at him like the miracle he was._

_And I was crying. Tears of joy and guilt and fear and love all mixed into a cocktail that I’d never tried before. And then he was being laid into my arms, still crying as he wriggled in the swaddle they’d wrapped him with._

_And I was crying with him. My heart was crying out for me to hold it. And so I did._

_And I was filled with all the feelings that I’d been told I should have had for my entire pregnancy. I was filled with love for this boy, my boy, my Bean._

_“My Bean…” I whispered, tortured. “My Nico…”_

_I didn’t know when I’d named him, or where I’d pulled the name from. But it was his name, and I knew it in my soul. But I didn’t think anyone had heard me, and maybe I’d wanted it that way._

_Cece was grasping at my arm, drawing my sweat riddled hair from my face and pressing her lips to my cheek as I looked down at the boy I had loathed for nine months._

_“I’m so proud of you,” Cece was whispering into my cheek, crying. But I could barely hear the echo of her voice._

_Because now that I was seeing him face to face, I was loving him. And I needed to protect him with the very heart of my soul and my being. And then I was crying because I knew he needed to be protected_ from me _, too._

_I drew him close to me for just a moment, reveling in the feeling of having him so close to me, but then I was shaking my head and holding him away from me, out for the nurses or the doctor or anyone but me to take._

_“Take him away,” I sobbed, my voids like knives cutting into my throat and making me drown in my own blood. Because I knew I couldn’t give him what he needed. I couldn’t be his mother. I would ruin him. I would shatter my heart into pieces if it meant saving his soul._

_“What?” Cece managed to whisper. “Yvie–”_

_“Just take him!” I screamed, tears running a river down my cheeks. “Please! I don’t want him!” I lied. “I can’t have him!” My Bean, my Nico… he was worth the whole world, and worth a future that I couldn’t give him._

_“Yvie, you don’t know what you’re saying–” Cece tried, horror in her eyes as I held him as far from me as I could._

_“JUT TAKE HIM!” I screamed. The terror in my voice might have been what made a nurse take him from my arms. And then I was throwing my head back. I wanted to curl into myself._

_I wanted to run from here. From this house of horrors that would haunt my nightmare for the rest of my life. And then Cece’s arms were wrapping around me in an embrace I didn’t deserve._

_She was crying with me as she held me, as she tried to hold me together. But I was already broken._

_“Are you sure this is what you want?” she whispered into my ear, her voice torn apart as she waited for me to respond._

_Wanting to gouge my own eyes out, I managed to nod, squeezing them shut instead so that she wouldn’t see my regret. I didn’t_ want _this, but it was what my Nico_ needed _. Couldn’t she see that?_

_“Would you like a photo?” I heard a voice ask, lowly and carefully, but still sad._

_I looked up in shock. The nurse that held up a camera had to be fucking joking. What was it about my face that was saying ‘yes please, I’d love a physical reminder of the moment I tore my own heart out of my fucking chest, because the mental reminder won’t be heavy enough for me to carry for the rest of my life anyway.’_

_“Are you fucking joking?” I choked out. The nurse just bit her lip sympathetically at me. Then she shook her head once as tears filled her eyes._

_“We can put him up for adoption, but we find that those who don’t have at least one photo tend to regret it…” she said sadly._

_I was falling apart. I didn’t want to hold him again. I was afraid I wouldn’t be strong enough to let him go again if I did. But maybe that was what she was hoping for._

_So, I would do this, to prove her wrong. And to show myself I was strong no matter how much my soul was dying and that I was digging my own shallow grave._

_And I would do this for my Nico. He deserved better than me, a mother who hadn’t wanted him, and wasn’t prepared for him no matter how much one look at his beautiful face had made me love him._

_No matter how much one look at him and one hold of him had stitched him forever into a place in my heart._

_Cece answered for me, before I could say no. Maybe she was trying to torture me, too. Or maybe she knew me better than I knew myself. And before I could rescind her decision, my Nico was in my arms again and I was staring brokenly at his now sleeping face._

_The face that would live in my dreams and my memory forever. The face and the boy and the heart and soul that I would love unconditionally until my dying day._

_I cried hard at him in my arms again. And I leaned forward to press his forehead to my lips. The one touch to his skin I would allow myself. He was seared there forever._

_My tears dripped onto his face as I heard the camera shutter. And then I was rocking back and forth. And my grip on him was tight enough to prove to me that maybe I couldn’t let him go._

_“I’ll give you a last moment together,” the nurse said, her voice cracking and breaking, shattering like glass. And then she was leaving the room before I could thrust him back into her arms. And then Cece was drawing away from me, too._

_“If this is what you want, baby, then I’ll support you. But you need this time to say goodbye to him. Because_ I know _why you’re doing this. Because I know_ you. _And_ I love you. _And while you don’t think you deserve him, even though you do, I know you need this time with him._ Cherish him, _baby…”_

_And then she was gone and I was left to hold him for the remainder of the night._

_And when the sun finally rose and the tear tracks had long dried on my cheeks, Nico still slept soundly. And a nurse arrived to carry him away soundlessly. Like his father, between one blink and the next he was gone._

_And then Cecelia was taking me home. I didn’t know how long I’d stayed in the hospital, but the second I stepped out, I knew that I couldn’t look back._

_He would go to a good home and a loving family. He would have a bright future, because if a family were well off enough to adopt him, then they could afford him a life that I never would._

_And I left my heart behind that day._

.

I woke up choking on air.

It was still dark out, and by some miracle, James was fast asleep next to me.

But I could feel my heartbreak racing through me like it had happened only yesterday. A wound so fresh it would never heal. A wound so open that it served as a constant reminder.

I ran to the bathroom, hurling up whatever contents laid in my stomach. And then, after resting my face against the cool porcelain, the sobs came.

The heart wrenching and soul ripping sobs that were all too familiar. And then I was stumbling to the guest room where all of my stuff was.

I tore through my bags until I came across my purse. And then I reached into the all too familiar pocket and pulled out the picture that was old and creased and tattered and loved and shoved into the back.

The picture that I hadn’t wanted but that the nurse and Cece had been so right about. The picture that I cherished. The boy who was my whole heart.

When my eyes fell on the broken silhouette of my past self, and the precious baby she cradled in her hands, I fell apart. I was on my knees next to the bed and I was crying tortured sobs into the comforter.

My fingers traced the memory of my boy and I wondered for the umpteenth time if he were okay and loved and cherished like I so wished I could have done for him. I had long ago told myself that I couldn’t indulge the ‘what if’s.

What if I’d had him when I was older?

What if the family that took him in didn’t want him, either?

What if I’d kept him?

Those questions tortured me. So, I had forced myself not to think of them.

My fingers traced his outline in the photo, the curve of his head and the beginnings of his dark curly hair that he’d gotten from his father.

His fingers as they clenched around mine. The bow of his dark lips and the roundness of his nose and his cheekbones. The birthmarks hidden beneath his hair and over his shoulders.

He would be six now.

I’d never even got to see him open his eyes…

I hated to think of what his new parents had told him of me. Of the mother who abandoned him at the hospital because she didn’t love him enough. When in reality I’d left him there because he was all in the world I loved. My whole heart, my Nico.

Or had they not even told him about me and where he came from?

I would never meet him.

I had no idea who he’d gone to, despite the number of times the hospital tried to contact me about it after I left him there.

And maybe that was the worst part. If I’d made up my mind about adoption sooner, I could have sided with an agency and played a part in where he had ended up. But like everything else in my life, I’d left it up to the last moment.

And that was my fault.

And I felt the guilt of that decision in my bones like I’d felt guilt over my brief relief the night of my almost-miscarriage.

I don’t know when I exhausted myself to sleep again, but I managed to pull myself up and under the comforter of the guest room bed. And then I was curled around the photo, it cradled in my hands like the precious thing that it was as I dreamed about my heart and the shape I wondered it had taken.

The shape of my boy, my Bean, my Nico…

.

**I hope you bawled your fucking eyes out like I did.**

**I actually don’t think I’ve ever written something so heartbreaking and I’ve never felt _so_ absolutely wrecked over something I’ve written. I need a moment to myself. I’m begging you guys to go easy on me for this in the comments.**


	13. Twelve: In Which She Uncovers The Truth

**TWELVE: In Which She Uncovers The Truth**

**Yvonne**

I was different.

James could tell. Harris could tell. Hell, even Stella could tell.

I tried to put on a brave face, but that dream had scared the shit out of me. I didn’t know why it had happened then and there in that moment, and why I’d had dreams that were building up to that climax in that way.

I hadn’t had a dream a single night since. And it had been almost an entire work week.

It was like my subconscious knew that I was feeling happy for the first time in years, and it just had to come along and ruin the moment. I was trying to repress the feelings again, but there had been no hiding the dark circles under my eyes the next day when James had crept warily into the guest room to find me still huddled beneath the covers at two in the afternoon.

His voice had been careful, like he’d been approaching a wounded animal. That had made me feel all kinds of shit but I knew I shouldn’t be mad. He was just trying to figure out what the hell kind of switch had flipped inside me. I had hidden my creased photo of my baby boy so that it wouldn’t raise questions that I _could not_ answer.

Harris gave me curious looks over dinner as I stared at my food. He squeezed my hand gently on our afternoon walks, like he knew it was his turn to comfort me.

That made me feel horrible inside.

I knew I should have called my therapist. She knew what was going on with me. She was the only one besides Cecelia who had known the truth of anything about Nico and Rio. But I hadn’t spoken to her in years. I didn’t want it to seem like I’d failed at keeping my demons away.

At keeping my failures at arms length where they couldn’t hurt me.

Fat lot of good that had done for me.

I couldn’t tell Harris or James. Everytime one of them did something so kind and caring to try and coax me out of my funk, I felt like crying. I couldn’t tell them what was really going on, because they didn’t need that kind of burden. Our pain wasn’t similar.

They had lost a mother and a partner. But I had lost a future. I had lost my whole heart. I had let him go to help him. To give him a better life than one with me.

And I knew that if I kept this up much longer, I’d have to let go of these two boys, too. Because they didn’t deserve to have to look after the broken mess that I’d become. That wasn’t fair to them. Or anyone.

I was my own burden to shoulder. And I probably always would be.

The first three nights after my dream of Nico, James had left me to sleep in the guest room alone. He gave me the space I showed him I needed, for which I was both thankful and resentful. But I couldn’t stay resentful. Because it wasn’t James’ fault that my heart was fractured and split with no chance of repair. The jagged edges of it ripped at my insides, and had done so for the past six years.

The damage was unfixable at this point.

I couldn’t stay resentful; not when I couldn’t tell James the reason that him leaving me alone was a terrible thing to ask for. I couldn’t feel resentful that he wasn’t comforting me in the dark, because he didn’t know the difference of my wants and needs because he _couldn’t know._

I would never tell him.

But on the fourth night, late into my sleepless night, I heard his feet shuffling on the carpet outside the door. He was pacing, as if unsure if he could cross the threshold tonight.

I couldn’t sleep.

But neither could he, I remembered. We were both plagued with the ghosts of our past. The ghosts we loved more than close to anything in this world.

Eventually, I heard him halt in place, take a deep breath, and then the doorknob was creaking lowly as it turned. And James’ silhouette in the dark was large and imposing, but not unwanted.

For the first time in days, I felt my heart stutter for a reason outside of great pain. But stutter with longing instead. I longed for him beside me, around me, inside me.

I was in no shape to ask for such things. I could only hope he could read me. Wordlessly, I opened the duvet for him and he walked over, sliding inside and slipping an arm around my waist.

My head was on his naked chest and I pressed a palm against the warmth of his skin. He sighed into me, his lips in my hair as I winced. My eyes were dry of tears, but my body still wanted to cry.

His touch was so secure and so comforting with so much love that I didn’t deserve after the way I’d kept he and his son so far from me the last few days. He sighed into my hair as his arms moved to wrap around to the skin of my back.

One hand filtered up beneath the back of my camisole to press against my skin. It made my heart clench. The way he wanted to feel so close to me, skin to skin, made me clench my eyes shut to stop any tear that might try to escape.

His fingers stroked softly at my skin, comforting me. My breathing was uneven as I tried to lose myself in the rhythm of his touch. Something so unwavering as so freely given.

“Just tell me,” James whispered into the darkness. “Was it something I did?”

His voice was low and pained. When my lips parted in shock, I moved my head from his chest to stare brokenly into his eyes. My hand came up to cup his cheek, my thumb running over his soft skin.

I shook my head. This poor man thought it was his fault.

“Never,” I managed to whisper, my throat hoarse from the neglect of the last few days.

James grimaced. “Are you sure? Because you’d tell me if I pushed you into something you weren’t ready for, right? Because you know I’d never ask for anything from you that you weren’t comfortable with or okay with–”

I managed to shush him softly, my thumb caressing at his lower lip. He frowned, his fingers coming up to link around my wrist and hold me there as we watched each other. His eyes were a more effective vice than anything I’d ever known. They held me steadfast and firm.

“It wasn’t anything you said or did,” I assured him, my eyebrows drawing together. “Please don’t ever think that.”

“Then what–”

A shake of my head cut him off again and he sighed, his lips pursed in concern. I winced. I couldn’t tell him the whole truth. But he needed something from me. He needed to know _something._

“I had a dream,” I admitted, my voice low and hitching. “Well, dreams,” I clarified. “Just about some people I used to know and about something that happened to me years ago. It’s just a hard pill to swallow sometimes…”

James frowned, his fingers unwrapping from my wrist to instead cup my face and pull me closer to him. I sighed into him as he pressed a soft kiss to each of my eyelids.

It was my turn to hold his wrist as he caressed me like I was fragile – breakable. Maybe in that moment I was.

I could tell he wasn’t going to press me for more information, which I was grateful for.

We were silent for a while, just watching each other with soft hands and tracing each other’s outlines in the dark. I didn’t need to see him to know him. Not in the dark. Not with him like this.

I could see him through my fingers. I could see his apprehension in the creases of his eyebrows and I could see his exhaustion in the tight skin at the edges of his soft eyelashes.

And he could see the sadness in the corners of my lips. He could see my insecurities in the lines of my nose and the quiver of my chin. He could see me. And for now that was enough.

“Promise me one day, you’ll confide in me, baby…” he whispered. The words melted through me like the slow thaw of arctic sleet. And they made the first tears for my eyes in hours.

I pressed my face into his hand and he pulled me up to reach my lips with his, swallowing my response. I sobbed once into his lips, tasting the salt of my tears, but he just kissed me softly, allowing us to not have to go further than that. He was accepting me how I was.

I hadn’t had anyone do that for me since Cecelia.

I didn’t know how to process it.

I told him that I would confide in him in the way that I pressed my mouth harshly to his and in the way that my fingers gripped at the base of his neck and my other hand clenched into a fist against his chest.

And he understood it, my unspoken words. Like they were a language only the two of us knew.

For that I was grateful.

And then I was lulled to sleep by the slow and melodic stroke of his fingers over my skin as our legs tangled beneath the sheets. I hoped that this was my first step towards becoming more whole again. More me.

.

When I woke again, the darkness still held the room captive. But James was no longer beside me, or under me, or around me. But I could still feel him near. I rolled onto my side, feeling the dip in the mattress from his weight.

He sat at the edge of the bed with his head in the hands, turned towards the window. A thin strip of moonlight clung to the lines of his face, just lightly off center to his nose.

I could feel the soft shakes of his shoulders as he cried into his palms. My heart went out to him. I moved in the mattress until I was kneeling behind him and I could wrap my arms around him, burying my head into the crook of his neck.

He leant against me, as if he’d already known I was awake.

It was my turn to be there for him, that much was obvious.

I didn’t realize I was muttering apologies into his skin until his hands were on my arms, prying them open and turning in my arms to hold me against him again.

He was shaking his head.

“It’s nothing you’ve done,” he grimaced, his forehead leaning against mine and his tearstained cheeks flashing close to mine, shining in the thin strip of moonlight.

He was goddamn beautiful.

My palms cupped his jaw. His lids were pressed shut as he breathed slowly and deeply.

“I just…, I can’t expect you to share if I won’t either,” he admitted. I frowned, pressing myself against him until he turned on his side and I could sit in his lap. I needed him against me.

“What do you mean?” I whispered.

James took a deep breath, waiting a moment. And then he opened his eyes and I could see the pain there. The same pain I’d worn the last few days.

“About Sofia.”

My throat clamped shut in panic. I didn’t want him telling me anything he wasn’t ready for either. I understood the feeling so much more vividly now than I did weeks ago when I’d tried to pry the information from him.

“She was my person,” James started. My insides winced, but thankfully I stopped the expression from appearing on my face. “We met in high school after her family moved from Puerto Rico. We had a near instant connection and only managed to grow from there. She wanted to open her own salon in town one day.”

I bit my lip. The things he said made me want to crawl away from him. My fight or flight instincts were telling me that there was nothing left to fight for here. Because the way he spoke about her only told me that his heart was claimed a long time ago and there was no room for me…

But I stayed.

I must have been a sucker for the gut wrenching and heart slicing pain I felt inside me.

“After we got married, we tried for years to have a baby. Eventually, a doctor told us that it was too dangerous to try and conceive ourselves. Sof was heartbroken, but we decided that when the time was right and we’d both healed enough, we’d make a move to adopt or foster or something.

“And then we were both out of state for one of my first auctions about a month after we’d been given the news. One of my handlers was kicked and rushed to hospital with a concussion and several broken ribs. While I was there, I heard two nurses discussing a child who was being put up for last minute adoption. They wouldn’t say what had happened to the mother.”

I was frozen in place by his hushed story. One I didn’t think Harris was aware of yet.

“So, I swung by the NICU for a look at him, and when I saw him, I knew instantly that Sof and I couldn’t leave town without him. It was like someone had made him just for us. And even though we’d both promised to wait until we were ready, we knew it was the right thing for us. And I just _couldn’t_ stand to leave him in there a second longer.

“So, the next day, we approached some doctors and he made background checks. It took about two weeks of different paperwork and such, and I made us spend more money on staying in our motel room so that he could come home with us. And then when we finally got him back home, Sofia was a natural with him. I was a royal fuck up, but somehow, we made it through the first two years of being parents.

“And then I ruined everything…”

I frowned up at him. This whole story felt like I was injecting ice into my veins, freezing me from the inside out, by I sensed this was only the half of it.

James wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“I went out with a few buddies and we got so fall down drunk that I’d needed Sofia to come and pick me up. I hadn’t been drunk in years because of taking care of Harris, so I’d forgotten what it felt like. And when I saw her car come around the corner, it was like watching everything in slow motion and fast forward at the same time.

“This semi came out of nowhere and ran a red and smashed into the side of her and I couldn’t do anything but fucking watch. And when they pulled her out, she was already long gone. The steering wheel tore and pushed up into her ribs and crushed her heart. And the airbag detonated and broke her neck because she was then too close to the wheel at that point.

“And I just fucking _watched_ it happen…”

My jaw was gaping in horror. This was too horrible. It was no wonder the man couldn’t find a fucking wink of sleep.

“I did that to her,” James whispered, finally looking at me with starry eyes and a hard jaw. There was no changing his mind on this. He’d decided a long time ago that this was his doing.

I shook my head and wiped furiously at the tears streaming down his face as he watched me helplessly. My mind was reeling. There were too many things that he’d told me that I couldn’t process in the moment.

There were too many parts of the story that I should have focused on. But I couldn’t. because this beautiful man was falling apart in my arms and all I could think to do was to desperately knit myself to him to keep him from crumbling between my fingers.

I wrapped myself around him, trying to hold the broken pieces of him together as he fell apart against me, his emotions getting the better of him. I understood this might have been the first time he’d unloaded the full story on someone in a long time.

But what I didn’t realize was that while I was trying to piece his broken parts together, I was only unravelling myself.

.

**So many jigsaw pieces on the table unsolved rn**


	14. Thirteen: In Which She Flees

**THIRTEEN: In Which She Flees**

**Yvonne**

I woke up alone.

When I rolled onto my side to check the time on my phone, I figured James would have gone out to the yard to start the day’s work for the ranch.

I could barely focus on that. My mind was in shambles.

After the last week I’d had in my funk of sadness and mild depression and disassociation, and then on top of that, James’ confession and his story last night… needless to say, I was emotionally and physically drained.

My brain was a haze as I pulled myself out of bed and made my way to the bathroom. My clothes were falling from my skin and I was stepping under the cold spray, hoping beyond hope that it might wake me up.

Harris would already be at school was my guess, and James had let me sleep in to try and regain some of my strength, I supposed.

I leant my head against the wall of the shower, my dark hair falling in wet strips over my shoulders and sticking to my skin like glue. I was a fucking mess.

_She was my person…_

I couldn’t get his words out of my head.

_And then I ruined everything… I did that to her… I just fucking watched it happen… slow motion and fast forward at the same time…_

What a horrible fucking fate, for _anyone_ to have to endure. The facts of her death were what struck me the most. He spoke of what had happened to her so clearly, so matter-of-factly as if there were no denying the truth. No embellishments.

He spoke of her injuries and her death so clinically that it was obvious how much he had obsessed over every fact of the accident. He had analyzed ever single millisecond and every single moment and convinced himself that it were his fault. That there was nothing to be said or done about it.

He spoke the words like a mantra, like he was forcing himself to never forget the fate he’d subjected his person to.

And that tore my fucking heart out of my fucking chest.

The water pelted across the thin skin of my back like rock, feeling heavier with each passing second. My spine felt battered and bruised. I was going to be slowly buried by this avalanche. This landslide. This onslaught of weight and pressure not just from the water against me but from his past and my past and our stories and how they fucking meshed together, because there was no way they didn’t.

Fate was just that cruel.

I pressed my hands flat into the wall of the shower as if I could become a part of the infrastructure. I braced myself against the wall, letting my head hang down as my breaths became deep and haggard and troubled.

My stomach churned with the want to expel something but there was no use.

I hadn’t consumed enough over the last few days to force anything out of my stomach, at the horror that consumed me.

Because my mind was hurtling with the other part of his story, the one he’d practically glossed over like it was nothing more than background information. The one that stabbed so deep within me that I struggled to believe it would ever be unwedged from my insides.

_…too dangerous to try and conceive ourselves… last minute adoption…_

My head was pounding. Those words had plagued me in my sleep, shouting across the empty plains of my mind as I tried to sleep, my body restless. The words called out to me like the echo of a lost soul, pounding through my ears and down my veins to my toes before back to my heart to constrict the vessels and the blood flow like a fucking boa.

My head felt the weight of a bowling ball while my body felt utterly weight _less_. My toes felt sewn into the shower floor at my feet like the roots of a tree kept me grounded in one place, forced to live out the consequences of my decisions.

_I just couldn’t stand to leave him in there a second longer… he could come home with us…_

I couldn’t let it go. The words shattered and reformed a million times in my mind, like they were melted down to a solid form before being forced to explode, and then back in the cycle again.

The words were coating the inside of my mind like layers of schist rock. But there were cracks in the armor, and too much pressure would make it all shatter and I’d crumble with it all.

I turned around, my back against the wall of the shower now, my head thrown back and my eyes closed as the water came over my face now. I deserved for the water and the rocks to mar my face and batter and bruise me. I deserved to feel that kind of pain.

I deserved it all for leaving him, my Nico.

Because the pain made it all real. The pain made me remember. It forced me to.

And then I was turning the handles for the shower and suddenly the water was scorching. My skin flamed red like a lobster being boiled, and suddenly the rocks were like molten lava. They burned at my skin, as if trying to crawl deeper inside me where they could set and cool and mold me in this place forever. They sealed my mind and I could feel smoke in my lungs.

I could feel it burning a slow path up my throat and at the base of my nose. I could feel it searing the back of my tongue and I could taste blood. Like someone had taken a blowtorch and made my lips and my tongue and my airways bubble as their burned golden like a crème brûlée. When it cooled it would crack and I would revel in that pain, too.

Because I deserved it all for leaving him, my Nico.

Because I knew I was right about my suspicions, and that meant Sofia Narvaez’s blood was on my hands, not James’.

All I was missing was solid proof.

But I knew where to get that, too.

Urged and desperate and hyper focused, I shut off the water and stepped from the shower into a towel. I barely stopped to rid myself of the rocks – the droplets of water coating my inflamed skin – before I was reefing on a tank and boxers. James’ clothes, I realized too late.

My hair lay wet across the material of my clothes, drenching it instantly, but I was in no mind to care.

I was not quiet as I descended the stairs. In my haste, I came close to tripping over my own feet and stumbling down the last few steps, probably sure to break something. I would have deserved that pain, too.

James wasn’t downstairs. I knew he was outside, giving me the space he thought he owed me. He was wrong, of course, but there was no convincing him of that. Just like there was no convincing me that I was wrong about this. Everything lined up too easily.

I made my way to James’ study, where I’d done most of my work while I’d been staying there. There was a small filing cabinet in the corner – the keeper of important documents in this modest home.

I had the good sense to lock the door behind me before going snooping. I thanked my hyper focus for that. I was dedicated to this mission now, there was no going back from what I was sure to find.

Sure enough, James had an entire folder labelled for his son.

_Harris N. Williams._

My breath stalled as I looked at the loopy handwriting on the small tab label. I could have sworn my heart stopped, too.

And then with shaky hands and unfocused eyes, I was reaching for the file.

I splayed it out on the floor before me and opened it. The first thing to meet my eyes were little things. An artwork from when he was a toddler – actually, there were quite a few of those… A myriad of loose photos of he and James, he and Sofia. She was unmistakably beautiful. Enough for me to wonder what the hell James saw in me…

There were other things, records of vaccinations and first words and a folded-up height and weight chart for his progress at different ages. And then I found it. Folded and tucked into the very back edge of the folder, as if it had been the first thing to be placed in there.

A birth certificate, and a certificate of adoption.

My fingers trembled as I unfolded the birth certificate. My heart raced as it leapt into my throat. I could barely breathe as my vision swam.

But then I saw it. Clear as day.

**_D.O.B.:_ ** _05-AUG-2014_

**_P.O.B.:_ ** _Cleveland Clinic, OH, USA_

**_Sex:_ ** _Male_

**_Child’s Name:_ ** _Unknown – scratched from record at request of mother_

**_Mother:_ ** _Yvonne Delilah Hopkins_

**_Father:_ ** _Unknown_

At seeing the confirmation of my own name, tears filled my eyes and I dropped the slip of paper from my fingers. I let out a dry sob and buried my head in my hands.

I was fucking right.

I had done this to Sofia. I had done this to James. I had taken away not just one mother from my son, but two.

My heart pounded in my ears and I felt myself rising to my feet. I needed to get the fuck out of there. I couldn’t stay in this place knowing what I’d done to this family, how I’d torn them apart. I couldn’t put my Nico through that again. I couldn’t force this on James.

I didn’t think about how he hadn’t recognized my name. If it were me, the name of my adopted son’s biological parents would have been seared into my mind. But James had other things to worry about, namely his wife, so I could understand how this might have gone over his head.

He couldn’t have known or put these pieces together. He hadn’t known I’d given up a son in my youth. My baby, my Nico. James had no way of knowing that his son was my son, too.

But I couldn’t stay here.

I had given him up once. I would do it again – I _had to,_ for his own sake. He didn’t deserve such a screwup for a mother.

And then I was running upstairs and I was throwing my wet hair over my shoulder and I was changing hastily into my own clothes and I was shoving my shit into my bags and hoping I wasn’t forgetting anything.

And then I was flying downstairs and shoving my feet into my shoes. And then with tear stained cheeks and wild eyes, I was pushing myself out the front door, even though every step was splintering at my soul.

I was a horrible human being.

If my son ever grew up to discover the truth about me, he’d want nothing to do with me. Not after knowing I’d deserted him twice. And I would deserve every horrid thing he said or thought of me.

But he was better off without me. And I could only hope that he would see that. And that his father would see it, too.

My Nico had a good life here, with a loving father. More loving than the deadbeat asshole who had run out on me at one outburst of emotion. Nico – _Harris_ – deserved this life. His life. Not mine.

And I hoped that he might one day understand that.

I shoved my shit into James’ truck, hoping he’d forgive me for taking his vehicle. I didn’t have much time to consider any other ride, because for their own benefit, I needed to put as much space between myself and this family as I could manage.

Wiping tears from my eyes as I sobbed, I pulled myself into the driver’s seat and turned over the engine. As it sputtered to life, I looked up to back out of the driveway. But suddenly James was standing in the entryway to his house with a dumbfounded and shocked look on his face, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

I couldn’t hear him over the roar of the engine, but through my hazed vision, I could see the outline of my name on his lips.

 _This is for the best_ , I thought to myself, willing him to hear my thoughts as we stared each other down through the windscreen. His eyes were wide with desperation and confusion. When he took a step toward me, I felt the truck lurch and then I was in reverse and I was getting the fuck out of there.

I couldn’t bring myself to look in the rear-vision mirror as I drove away. I knew he’d be standing in the wake of the dust of his driveway. I knew he’d be wearing that look on his face that I couldn’t take. The one that begged me to come back and tell him what the fuck was going on. The one that made it look like his heart was fucking breaking with every moment of space I was putting between us. The one that almost broke me. The one that demanded to know where the hell I thought I was going.

 _Away forever,_ I thought. _Because once he was mine, and now he’s yours, and I can’t bear the thought of you feeling the need to share him with the one person who should have loved him unconditionally – and does – when I left him there with no care to know what happened to him. You saved him when I couldn’t. Loved him when I couldn’t. Gave him a life when I couldn’t. And I’m eternally grateful. But now I don’t deserve to have any part of his life, and I hope one day you’ll understand…_

When I made my way to town, I turned into Morris’ garage. I had managed to calm myself down – barely – by the time he came out to greet me.

“I’m sorry, darl, but the car is nowhere near fixed. I’ve been back and forth with the airline but they’re not inclined to scrap it just yet. I still feel it’s going to be a while…”

To his credit, Morris didn’t comment on my emotional state, only gave it a cursory glance. Internally, I thanked his polite nature. I didn’t know that I could handle questions right now.

“That’s fine,” I managed to croak out. “But I need to get out of this town. I need to go back to New York. Is there anything that I could buy off you just to drive to the airport?”

Morris must have sensed the desperation in my voice, because after a moment of hesitation he let out a sigh and nodded once.

“Of course. No need to purchase it though, love. I’ve got a friend at the airport who can drive it back to town,” Morris said, his lips pursed in sympathy. “Take my truck. Hand over the keys to Andrew at the service desk and let him know they’re mine. He’ll take care of it from there.”

I nodded, thanking him and pulling him into a hasty embrace.

“You don’t know how much all of your hospitality has been appreciated,” I said sincerely. Morris just sighed, nodding once as if he understood everything I was going through. I assumed I wasn’t the first desperate person who he’d helped make an escape from this town.

“I’ll tell Williams that you’ve left his truck here. I’m sure he’ll be needing it.”

I nodded once. “Thank you,” I managed to whisper.

And then I was taking the keys he pressed into my palm. My fingers curled around them and I felt them dig into my skin, threatening to slice me open. I would have welcomed the pain. But I doubted Morris would want to take back a set of blood-stained keys.

I shoved my things from James’ truck into Morris’, and then I was out of there. I followed the directions on my phone back to the airport. Once I had service, I booked a last-minute flight back to the city over the phone. If I kept to the speed limit, I’d make it onto the flight with twenty minutes to spare.

So, obviously, I may have gone over the limit just slightly.

Andrew at the service desk was very confused, but didn’t ask too many questions after I handed over the keys because he didn’t have the chance. Because I was running to my gate.

I spent the flight back to the city with every person on the plane giving me odd looks – flight staff included. Granted, there were only about ten others on the flight, so I at least had a modicum of space to fall apart in peace.

But I was barely holding it together.

At some point, my photo of Nico was in my hands and I was running my fingers over his features, wondering how in the hell everything had worked out this way. I had resolved myself to knowing I would never again lay eyes on him, and then by some sheer strike of fate, he was in my life again.

As if the world had known my soul had called out to him since the day we’d been parted.

But how was that fair to him? How could the world be so cruel as to inflict so much pain in his life, knowing full well that I wouldn’t stick around, because that would go against every fucking reason I’d given him up in the first place?

How could the universe treat him that way. He was the only innocent one left of all of us. And life had been cruel enough to him already.

For the entire flight, I obsessed over the parts of my boy that I had been blind to in my time with him. The similarities between us. The familiarity of his features. Even the way he had looked a little like Rio with those braids.

I kicked myself for not having seen it sooner.

I was a fucking idiot.

And then hours later – though it had seemed like a mere blink in my head – we were landing in the city and I was fleeing the airport and running away to my apartment.

I threw open the door and I threw myself into my bed and I let the last pieces of myself that I’d been holding together fall apart. I stayed like that for what felt like an eternity.

I couldn’t how many times the sun had risen and set. I hadn’t moved from my bed. I had ignored my phone blowing up. I had ignored the growl of my stomach to eat or drink _something_ until it had given up on me, too, and gone silent.

I tried to ignore the ache in my chest and my stomach and my bones, but it was the only thing I could focus on. It was the only thing tying me to this life. This absolute gut wrenching pain that I could only decide I deserved whole heartedly.

The cops came to my apartment at one point, inquiring about a noise complaint. I could only wonder how I’d looked to them when I mustered the strength to answer the door.

He’d looked stunned.

“Uhhh… sorry to disturb you, ma’am… Your super called. He wanted us to remind all tenants that pets are strictly prohibited on the premises…?”

I gave him a tired look.

“I don’t have any pets,” I managed to croak, sniffling and wiping my nose with my sleeve. My eyes hurt from having rubbed them of my tears. The cop grimaced sympathetically.

He nodded. “I understand that, miss.” Then he lowered his voice. “We got a noise complaint for your apartment. A neighbor said they heard some alarming noises…”

I huffed, tears coming to my eyes. I nodded. “Thanks. I’ll uh… I’ll try to keep it down,” I managed to say. I hated all of my neighbors in that moment.

The cop nodded. Then he rifled through his pocket, pulling out his wallet. “If you’re distressed and you find you need someone to talk to, I think my therapist is great.” He handed me a card and I couldn’t even find it in myself to be mad or offended as I took the card, because I was too tired, and this cop was looking at me like he actually might understand an aspect of my pain.

My guess was that he just thought I was doing it rough from a breakup. In reality, my heart hurt worse than that.

I’d never fallen apart this hard over a measly relationship. Not even over Rio fucking Lewis. And not over anyone since.

“Thank you,” I managed to say. The officer nodded.

“No problem. Take it easy, ma’am.”

And then I was closing the door and I was pressing my back against the wood frame and sliding down until I was huddled against the floor. His therapist’s calling card lay crumpled in my palm.

I didn’t know how long it took after that until I picked up my phone. I didn’t bother to read all the messages or glance at the number of calls I’d missed. I’d shut off my phone at some point before then just to cease the shrilling ringtone that echoed through the dead air of my apartment.

I dialed the only number I knew by heart. My fingers went numb as I waited for her to pick up. I managed to crawl into bed as it rung. Nico was in my hands as I waited to hear her voice.

“Yvie?! Oh my god, are you alright?! You haven’t picked up for days and I was so fucking worried! Don’t you ever do that to me again, you hear me?!”

I winced at my sister’s voice and at how loud she was.

I didn’t say anything for a moment. I couldn’t. I didn’t know what the hell I could say. I didn’t know what words might make her understand.

“Yvie…? Please tell me you’re alright, babe?”

I hiccupped down the line, sniffling afterwards. Cece stayed silent, waiting for me to tell her what was going on with me. After the wildness of the last few days, it felt odd to entertain a conversation with another human being.

How the hell was I supposed to tell her what I knew now? How the hell was I supposed to come back from this.

“It’s him…” I managed to whisper down the line. My voice broke as my thumb caressed his little head in my picture. And then I was crying down the phone.

“Shit,” I head Cece mutter to herself. Then she sighed softly, her voice cracking, too. “I _know_ , baby…”

And then those three words were enough to tear my heart open with loss. Those words were enough to shatter me. Because if Cecelia had figured it out, then I really _was_ a fucking idiot for not seeing it earlier.

She’d met my baby all but once over the goddamn phone, and she had figured it out before me.

And then I fell apart over the phone at Cecelia’s attempts to comfort me. I was the worst mother in the world. I couldn’t even recognize my own baby.

I was right. He was better off without me.

.

**I’m heartbroken for her…**

**Why do I insist on inflicting such pain on my characters? It only makes it so much more gut wrenching to write!!**

**So, I know that some of you started to figure all this out in the chapter before this, but I’m curious to know if anyone had any suspicions even _before_ that?? I definitely wasn’t shy about leaving clues…**


	15. Fourteen: In Which She Finds It Hard To Forget

**FOURTEEN: In Which She Finds It Hard To Forget**

**Yvonne**

Living was hard. Just… the utter banality of existing.

With each passing day and hour and minute, I found myself falling deeper down a well. The light from the opening grew dimmer each day. It seemed like every time I gained the strength to try and find the footholds in the stone, I stumbled and fell and cut myself open on shards of rock before falling a hundred feet deeper and near drowning in the viscous torrent that awaited me at the bottom.

It was like the water was slowly caressing me, whispering in my ears and filling my lungs and telling me that my final breath would only be so easy to let go of.

The water infected the cuts on my skin and I could feel my body trying to fight the infection it brought on.

Like I said… existing was hard.

And I knew I wasn’t going to get any better any time soon. My phone call with Cecelia however many days ago had only proven that to me. It had spiraled after that call.

The pure realization that she’d suspected about Harris had torn at my heartstrings until they snapped. And then at four in the morning – or whatever stupid hour of the morning it had been when our call dropped, I didn’t know, time felt like no more than a construct these days – I had traipsed my way from my apartment in nothing but my pajamas and a pair of old slippers and fuzzy socks.

I’d made my way to the bodega on my block and bought two things of hair bleach and toner. And then back in my apartment, I had spent the dwindling hours of the night putting my hair through hell until I no longer recognized the reflection staring back at me in the mirror.

In that moment, I understood why people in the midst of a ‘breakdown’ often took to their hair. It felt gratifying to make an instant physical change – one that I could control and that was in my hands and was the direct response to a monumental decision.

My hair came out orange at first. The dark brown took a while to lift, and then after a second round of bleach, I toned it back until it was at a greyish blonde color.

And then out came the scissors.

To be honest, I didn’t have an idea in mind for how I wanted the finished product to look. I just took hunks of my hair and snipped and cut chunks off until the feeling of watching it fall to the floor at my feet was no longer satisfying.

And then I passed out.

I had rolled my eyes at my reflection the following afternoon, not caring that it was uneven and choppy and had parts hanging in my eyes. I didn’t even bother to clean up all the mess I’d made.

All I knew was that I was chasing the same feeling I’d gotten at being proactive and taking something into my own hands. But I was feeling destructive – an emotion I hadn’t recognized at the time.

I had needed a distraction to keep my mind from obsessing over the small family I’d found and left, because I couldn’t bear to acknowledge the one good thing in my life that I’d broken.

I was my own worst enemy.

Which was why my next decision was probably a bad one, but in that moment, I didn’t give a single flying fuck.

I sent an exhausted and drunk and emotional email to Janet, the acting manager at my work. Then I cc’d Myron Banks himself into the email. And then I gave them my notice.

And then I didn’t check my email for days after that. I ignored calls and messages from my office. I knew it wasn’t a smart decision to make in my state, but I also couldn’t explain the small amount of joy that I felt at being free of that job. It had been a great place to work, but after spending so much time with James and Harris and not having to work, I had realized that it just wasn’t fulfilling me in a way that I needed anymore.

And I was passing each day with the growing feeling niggling inside me that I needed to escape. For as huge as New York City was, right then it only felt suffocating.

I had felt myself on more than one occasion since leaving Kansas that I’d been idling searching through apartments in Philadelphia. I wanted to be closer to my sister. I wanted to get out of this city that only proved to me how fucking lonely I really was.

I hadn’t made any hard and fast plans on that front yet, but it was seeming like that would be my natural next step, now that I didn’t have a job in the city keeping me here.

This interim period of my life felt like I was stalling.

I didn’t want to feel like that anymore.

I didn’t want to miss James and Harris anymore. I wasn’t going back to them. James had given up trying to contact me. It was obvious to me that they were over trying to get me back or figure out why I left.

I figured James had found the mess of papers that I’d left strewn around his office. Surely he’d put the pieces together. And I didn’t blame him for not wanting to talk to me ever again.

.

Life was still hard, but two or three weeks after leaving Kansas, my life was back to semi-normal.

Sure, I was emotionally drained and a shell of my former self.

Sure, I drank myself into a stupor most days staring at that damn picture of Nico and wondering when the hell I’d realized that I hated my life so much because life wasn’t worth living if it wasn’t with the two boys I loved most in the world.

Sure, I had nothing left to live for most days, and the thought of my real feelings for James and Harris Williams scared the shit out of me after only knowing them for so short a time.

But yeah. I was back to some kind of a routine, it just wasn’t necessarily the same routine I’d known before going to Kansas.

The hardest part of going through my everyday life were having to deal with the things that reminded me of them. I hadn’t touched a bowl of _Trix_ since coming back, in fact I’d thrown out all my stash because the thought of my son inheriting some of my sugar cereal cravings tore a hole in the walls of my hollow heart.

I couldn’t listen to _Queen_. One of their tracks had been playing in the bodega on my block one night when I’d gone out for a late night run for potato chips. I’d almost had a breakdown in the aisle. A homeless man had looked at me like I was insane. I bought him a Coke and a sandwich and given him money for food for the next week or so though, so I figured he ignored my mental state quite quickly after that.

Cartoons didn’t bring me joy anymore, so I’d had to get used to having reruns of _Friends_ and _Cheers_ and _How I Met Your Mother_ playing in the background of my apartment as I tried to focus on literally anything that made me not feel like a waste of space in my own home.

My life felt empty. And it didn’t take a genius to figure out why.

Things were so bad that I almost contemplated calling my parents at one stage. I’d got as far as pressing their number into my phone. I never pressed the call button, though. I knew there was no way I’d understand what I was going through, especially if they found out I abandoned my baby a second time.

The thought of their refusal to accept my choices was like a stab in the gut. It made me so viscerally angry that I’d thrown my phone across the room and shattered the screen. It was hardly usable after that.

It was probably why I hadn’t bothered to look at the caller ID when my phone rang out into the empty void of my apartment for the first time in weeks. The sound had startled me so much that I’d picked up out of pure instinct and habit.

_“Where did you go?”_

The small voice on the other end of the line made my heart stop in its tracks. I didn’t know who I’d been expecting – maybe a telemarketer – but this was just too much.

“Harris?” I dared venture. My voice sounded raspy to my own ears.

 _“When are you coming back?”_ He asked quickly. I could almost imagine the way he shuffled his feet as he tried to get the words out quickly, as if he were afraid I’d hang up on him.

The silence between us stretched to the moon and back. My little boy waited impatiently for an answer. It made me wonder whose phone he’d stolen to make this call.

“Baby, I’m sorry. I’m not coming back.”

I heard him huff at the other end of the call. I could envision the way his dark eyebrows pulled together in hurt and confusion at my words. _“But… Daddy’s sad…”_

I frowned. “What? How do you know? And how did you get this number?”

_The Harris in my imagination bit his lip with a mix of guilt and shamelessness. “It’s Aunty Anya’s phone.”_

I sighed, my head falling into my hands at his words. Of course. I’d forgotten that Anya had asked for my number in case of emergencies back in Kansas. There wasn’t a world in which Harris would risk using James’ phone to call me. Not if it would upset his father.

 _“Why can’t you come back? I need you…”_ His little voice trembled and it made me shoot to my feet, immediately taking on the role of concerned mama bear – the role that wasn’t available to me.

“What? What happened?” I couldn’t help the panic in my voice.

 _“My hair came undone at recess and the other kids pulled on it. I wanted to ask Daddy for help but he’s too sad. Aunty Anya takes care of me until bedtime now. She makes me dinner and watches cartoons with me. She doesn’t_ like Phineas and Ferb _, though. She tucks me in.”_

I ran a hand through my hair, pacing my living room. “Harris… baby, I’m so sorry to hear about those other kids. But I can’t come back. I uhh…” I trailed off, my head stalling my heart. It tore me in two to have to say these things to him. “I just can’t.” I had to grit my teeth to stop from screaming out in anguish.

 _“But you could make Daddy happy again like how you did before…”_ I could practically hear his heart being crushed over the phone. And I did that. I was the one who did that to him. I was despicable.

“Harris–”

_“He hasn’t smiled since you left. He keeps looking at pictures of Mommy and he didn’t do that before you came. I don’t understand why you won’t come back. You didn’t even say goodbye… You left me behind…”_

I frowned. He was looking at photo’s of Sofia? Probably thinking that she’d never have abandoned him – them – like I did.

“Baby, I can’t, I’m sorry. I can’t be who you and your Daddy want me to be. I can’t be a replacement to fill the hole that your Mommy left.”

 _“But, you won’t! You won’t! And, I miss you. And I know Daddy does, too.”_ So quick he was to try to reassure me that it brought tears to my eyes. I tried not to let Harris hear me cry over the phone, instead letting the tears track streaks down my cheeks like the first drops of rain after a drought.

“I know, baby. I’m sorry. I miss you, too,” I managed to whisper, my voice hoarse. I told him I missed him because I couldn’t bear it to lie to him that way. I couldn’t bring myself to make him think I felt nothing for him.

_“Well… Will you visit? I promise I won’t make you replace Mommy. And that means you can come back, because I won’t be mad and Daddy will smile.”_

“It’s not that easy, Harris.” No, I can’t visit, baby. That would be too hard for everyone involved. You need to let me go. I need to let _you_ go. Please let me let you go…

_“But it is! Please come back, Yvie. Please come home.”_

My hands clenched. Because I didn’t know when I’d begun thinking of Kansas as my home. But that didn’t stop the feeling of his words ringing true in my ears.

‘Home is where the heart is’ and all that. Maybe that’s why I felt like Kansas was home, because I’d left my heart there.

“I can’t, Harris. I’m sorry. Please don’t tell your Dad that you called me.”

_“But don’t you want to talk to him, too? Don’t you miss us? I thought you liked us.”_

“I do, baby. I do like you, more than I think you’ll understand.” I had to hold the phone away from my ear to choke a sob that I didn’t want him to hear. “But, I need to go. I need to leave you alone.”

_“But–”_

“No buts, baby. This is just the way that this has to be. I’m sorry.”

_“But why? Why can’t you come home and walk Stella with me and fix my hair–”_

He cut off as I heard shuffling of feet in the background of the call, as if someone had walked into the room where Harris had been hiding to call me.

 _“Harris? Who are you talking to?”_ The voice was female. Stern. Anya.

 _“No one,”_ Harris tried to say innocently.

 _“Pass me the phone, please, honey,”_ Anya sighed.

 _“Please come home. Promise you will–”_ Harris tried to get out quickly, before then I heard the crackle as the phone was ripped from his grip.

_“Hello? Who is this? Why are you calling my nephew.”_

“Hi, Anya. Sorry.” I sighed down the line, trying to wipe away my tears so she didn’t hear my heart break once more over the phone. My baby had been ripped away from me again, and I knew I should have been used to the feeling by that point, but I wasn’t. “He uhh… he called me and I didn’t look at the caller ID before answering. I’ll just go.”

 _“Oh… Yvonne. Sorry… you were just the last person I expected on the end of this line.”_ Her voice was mildly sympathetic, but that was outshone by her wariness. I didn’t blame her. From what it looked like on her end, I’d deserted the Williams family for no apparent reason. She hadn’t approved of my becoming close to James since I’d arrived, probably having foreseen this outcome from the moment we met.

“I’ll just go,” I said dejectedly, wiping at my nose so that I wouldn’t sniffle.

 _“Yes… okay…”_ She paused, and I knew she was deliberating just how to deliver her next few lines to infer that I not stick around. _“And uh, for Harris’ sake, maybe lose this number? I think the damage here is already bad enough.”_

“Sure thing, Anya. Bye then.”

_“Goodbye.”_

The line clicked dead and I was falling apart all over again. I’d thought I was getting marginally better. How horribly wrong I was. I didn’t deserve even the hollow heart in my chest. I wanted it ripped from my ribcage and thrown to the deepest depths of the ocean where I couldn’t reach it.

Where it couldn’t hurt me anymore.

.

**Don’t mind me, it seems I’m just dropkicking my heart across a fucking football field for no reason…**

**Next chap is the last one. And, oh wow, could this be the first of my stories without a happy ending? Stay tuned to find out…**


	16. Fifteen: In Which She Sees The Silver Lining

**FIFTEEN: In Which She Sees The Silver Lining**

**Yvonne**

That phone call set life in motion for me again. I wanted a new phone, a new number, and a new place to call home. That meant that I needed to tie up all my loose ends in New York City before finally calling it quits.

So, I wasn’t surprised to find myself back at my old workplace. The skyscraper loomed up into the sky and I took a deep breath before heading inside. I looked severely casually dressed compared to all the suits and hair sprayed heads I walked past. I was in a simple pair of light-washed jeans, black docs, and a white camisole beneath an oversized baby-blue loose-knitted cardigan.

New York was starting to move into its cooler weather, but not so much yet that I had to wear too many layers. I’d managed to pull up my uneven and choppy hair into some semblance of a style – two little space buns, because it was the only way I could think of to hide my mental breakdown until I could get to an actual hair salon to fix it.

I used my old badge and credentials to get up to my floor. The eyes of my old workmates caught mine, before they all looked at the carboard box in my hand. If they hadn’t known I didn’t work there anymore, then this was sure to clue them in. There wasn’t much else that a cardboard box this size said besides ‘I’m out of here, bitches’.

I tried to ignore their eyes as much as possible. I hated the feeling of being watched, knowing that I’d most likely be one of the topics for conversation in the break room at lunch. All I could think was thank god I wouldn’t have to be there to bear witness to it. The only thing worse than knowing people were whispering about you, was walking in on them whispering about you.

At least this way, I wouldn’t have to talk to any of them.

I made my way to my office, a small little room with a window and a view of a corner of the Empire State building. The room was sparse of any of my own actual belongings. Most of the styling and the interior decorating with knickknacks had been the work of some anonymous woman and I’d never cared enough to switch out her little touches for my own.

My only belongings on the desk were a photo of Cecelia and I at my college graduation, a little crystal dish of jelly beans that I definitely needed to throw out, and an old stress ball that I’d turned into a rubber band ball.

My college degree was framed on the wall, and I had a fiddle-leaf fig in a pot growing at the base of the window.

Everything else in the office were documents and files and hardcopies of things that I needed to do my job, all of which would be staying here.

I sighed as I opened up my box and started pulling things together. Everything fit pretty well into my little box, which in itself felt very sad to me. Then I sat everything on my desk chair. The chair was one of the other things I’d brought into the office for myself. The office chair that they had supplied me with on my arrival hadn’t been all that comfortable, so I had searched high and low until I’d found one to suit me. It was patterned and cute and had high arm rests.

Frowning, I moved my box from the chair and instead put my fig plant there. It would be easier to take on the subway that way, I thought.

And then as I was about to pick everything back up and retreat downstairs where I could surrender my passes to the lobby security, I was interrupted by a knocking on my glass door.

I looked up, surprise etched into my features when I saw Janet standing there, tall and thin and imposing, but with a sympathetic smile.

“I heard through the grapevine that you were back to collect some stuff,” she smiled, taking a step into the room and pulling me into an efficient embrace. I smiled, accepting the hug. Janet had never been a particularly touchy-feely kind of person, but she had been a good and fair superior to me, and even though we probably wouldn’t remain in contact, she’d been a good work friend.

“Yeah, I was just cleaning up my space so that you can give it to the next employee, you know?”

Janet smiled, hands on her hips after she stepped back from me. She nodded once, her eyes dancing across my face and pointedly avoiding focusing too long on my new hair. Janet was polite enough that I knew she wouldn’t question it.

“Of course, of course,” she said. “Well, I just came by to fetch you, actually…”

I frowned, intrigued. “Really? Why?”

Janet’s smile became a little wider. “Well, I figured we could walk through your severance package and how best to collect on your benefits from working here for so many years.”

I frowned.

“Severance? But I quit… shouldn’t that disqualify me from any kind of package?”

Janet just scoffed with a smile, waving me off. “Don’t be silly,” she said, motioning for me to follow her out the door. “Myron thinks of everyone here as a family, and his policy is that no matter how you leave his family, everyone is equitably compensated for their loyalty and their hard work.”

My eyebrows shot up.

“Oh.. well that’s… _very generous_ ,” I managed to get out. I hadn’t been expecting this.

I followed Janet in her high heels and her pencil skirt as she moved towards her office, the one across the hall from Myron Banks’ suite office. When she opened her door, though, and gestured for me to go in first, my jaw went slack.

Myron Banks himself was sitting behind Janet’s desk, rifling through a stack of papers. He looked up when I came in.

“Aahhh, Miss Hopkins,” he said, giving me a kind smile.

“Sir?” I couldn’t help but reply. I turned to look at Janet, but she was instead just giving me a soft smile and closing the door behind me, leaving me alone with my former boss. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.

“Sorry to ambush you like this, Yvonne,” he smiled, standing up to shake my hand over the desk. “Janet believed you wouldn’t come by if you’d known I was here.”

I frowned, pursing my lips. He motioned for me to take a seat on the opposite side of the desk to him. I took it slowly, very confused.

“Yeah… yes. She uhh… she said something about a severance package?” I asked unsurely, raising an eyebrow. Myron chuckled.

“Is that what she came up with, is it? I tell you, I’ve always been impressed with Janet’s improvisational skills and her ability to think of her feet.”

I frowned. “So… that’s _not_ what I’m here for then?” I asked. “Sorry, I’m just a little confused as to what’s going on. I just came to clean out my office.”

Myron smiled easily. “Oh, I’m well aware of what your intentions were here today, Yvonne,” he reassured me. Somehow, he didn’t sound condescending, only understanding. “I’ve actually come into the office today to inquire as to whether you might want to stay with us?”

“Sir?” I asked, my eyebrows furrowing. Surely he was joking. I’d neglected work for weeks and yet here he was offering me another chance? Something wasn’t right.

“Of course, if you’re set on leaving then I won’t stop you. And I would negotiate some severance package or whatever Janet promised you in order to lure you here. But I would suggest you still hear out my proposal…”

When I didn’t say anything, instead just sat in stunned silence, Myron just chuckled and continued on.

“You see, your resignation left me in quite a predicament, Miss Hopkins,” he said. “I began looking for replacements for your position immediately, but my labors have born no fruits, at least, no fruits with your particular expertise and accomplishments and work ethic.

“I wanted to offer you your position back, but with a raise. I understand that monetary complications are what often lead to unhappy employees.”

I frowned. “Oh, it was never about the money, sir,” I reassured him. Myron banks frowned, losing his composure for the first moment of our conversation.

“Alright…” he said, readjusting his position in his chair. “Then may I ask the reason for your resignation? Perhaps there is something I can offer you?”

I bit my lip, sighing.

“It honestly had nothing to do with anyone here or any aspect of the job, sir,” I said. “I actually fucking love my job here, excuse my language.”

Myron waved me off with a small smile.

“I uhh… I just had a few complications in my personal life recently that have made me seek a change in my routine. I’ve actually been looking into moving from New York…” I trailed off.

Myron leveled me with a sympathetic smile.

“I fully understand, Yvonne,” he said, nodding once. “I understand more than most the desire for change and growth. It is one of the things that urged me into making my own company in the first place. If it is stability in said change that you seek, then I hope I’m able to offer some semblance of that.

“To be frank, you’re the best data analyst that this company has ever seen, and to lose you would cost us more than you know,” he said. “I want you to stay with us. I can offer you a roaming position so that you can work for me from anywhere in the country. The complications of any such move can be easily handled. If it would sway your opinion, I can also offer a company car and a grant for your own working quarters.

“Of course, if you still wish to leave us, I will fulfill Janet’s promise and offer you our highest beneficial severance package so that you might be well supported.”

My jaw was practically on the floor.

“Sir… that’s much too generous–” I tried to say.

“Nonsense,” he cut me off. “The money is no object. I only wish to keep you as an employee. The risk of you taking a job with one of my competitors is too great for your particular value.”

I ran a hand over my mouth. I didn’t know what to do. This was kind of the offer of a lifetime. And I could live and work for him from wherever I wanted to in the entire country. The possibilities of that proposal were endless.

But I didn’t want to sound to eager and money hungry. I bit my lip before meeting Myron’s eyes again.

“Would you mind if I thought over your offer for a few days?” I asked.

Myron nodded. “Of course. I’ll have our lawyers draw up two contracts for you by this afternoon for you to peruse until you make your decision; one for the job offer and one for the severance package. I sincerely hope you’ll choose to stay with us in the long run, though, Yvonne.”

“Right,” I nodded. “Well…, thank you so much for the opportunity, sir. I uhh… I promise I won’t delay my decision too long.”

“Of course,” Myron nodded, standing up and extending his hand for me to shake again, signaling the end of the meeting. “But there’s no rush, Yvonne. It’s a big decision. Take your time and get back to me when you’re ready.”

“Of course, sir, thank you,” I nodded, shaking his hand and standing before walking from the room with a small smile. Janet was waiting for me outside the door with a smile on her face as if she’d heard the whole conversation.

We made small talk as she walked me back to my office – or more like, she made small talk because I was still in shock. Then I was able to take all my things and bring them back to my apartment. There was no sense in leaving it all at the office, because I already knew that if I accepted Myron Banks’ offer then I’d be taking the position from outside of New York.

The desire for a change was the one thing I was becoming set on.

It was a struggle to get everything onto the subway, and then back off again. The turnstiles especially gave me a hard time with my office chair, but eventually I made it back onto my block.

My focus was on trying not to drop the fast approaching heavy cardboard box in my arms as I made it the last few buildings to my apartment walkup. It was why I didn’t notice the small voice calling out, because my eyes were on the sidewalk as I pushed my office chair.

“Yvie!”

And my exhaustion was why I didn’t notice the small body until it was slamming into my midsection, arms wrapping around me. Upon instinct, I clutched at the sweater on the boy’s back and inhaled the familiar scent wafting up my nose.

And then my eyes were wide with tears.

“Harris?! Where did-? How did–?” My voice cut off as I fell to my knees and my baby wrapped his arms around my neck in a vice grip, holding me steadfastly to him. There was no sign of him letting go.

What the hell? Am I dreaming? I have to be fucking dreaming… there’s no way he’s here in my arms, I thought. But that didn’t stop me from clutching at him and holding him to me as tears fell freely down my cheeks.

“Oh, baby, I missed you… _so much_ ,” I managed to whisper, burrowing my face into the crook of his neck as my hand caressed the curve of his head, cradling him.

He was a ball of nervous energy in my arms, wrapping his legs around me soon, too.

“I missed you, too,” he whispered before tilting his head to press a small butterfly kiss to my cheek. “We waited for you for ages. Daddy thought we had the wrong building…”

I pulled away from him to caress his face and search those beautiful eyes of his.

“Your hair is different,” Harris said mildly, his voice low. I was barely listening. I was focusing on what he said before.

“Your dad is here?” I asked, my eyes immediately wandering over my baby’s head. _Of course, you idiot,_ I thought. _How did you think Harris got here? It’s not like he could get on a flight by himself and then somehow navigate New York City to find you, genius._

Harris gave me a shy nod, his hands curled around my wrists, anchoring him to me like he never planned on letting me go. I wasn’t so sure I had the strength to let him go another time, either. And then he turned slightly and gestured to halfway down the block where a tall man stood with his hands in his pockets, waiting at the door to my apartment building.

My lips parted, breath hitching as our eyes met. And then I was rising to my feet. Harris still had one of my hands clutched in his. I swallowed hard as I turned back to the rest of my things I’d dropped in my haste to caress my baby.

My heart.

“Do you need me to carry anything?” Harris asked sweetly. I softened as I looked down at my generous boy. Who could have thought that two screwup parents like Rio and I could have made such a beautiful kid. It was all James and Sofia’s doing, I swear.

Before I could reply, Harris managed to pick up my cardboard box while I was left to push the office chair and plant. Our walk towards James felt like a mile, my legs and limbs feeling like melted Jell-O with each step closer to him.

He shuffled on his feet when we finally made it over and I looked up at him. I didn’t know what to say to him. I had just up and left – stolen his car and fucking abandoned him. What could I possibly say to make up for that.

Turns out, I didn’t have to say anything. Because he was taking his hands from his pockets and stepping towards me and suddenly his arms were wrapping around me.

My face was pressed into his shoulder as he held me and my free arm came up to wrap around him, too. And then I was crying again. God, how did I stop myself from doing that? Someone please let me know. I was a blubbering mess and I fucking hated it.

“H- How are you here?” I managed to whisper through my sniffles and my hiccups. I felt Harris squeeze at my hand and then James was pulling away. His hand caressed my face and his thumb wiped my tears away. My hand rested on his forearm as he stared down into my eyes.

I could decipher the emotions in his. Probably confusion – I guessed – at seeing me so emotional at seeing them, but also because I hadn’t exactly pushed them away.

“Your sister called me,” James admitted. “She explained some things…, and then we got on the first flight out that we could. We’ve been waiting out here since about ten this morning.”

My mouth gaped open. _Cecelia had called him? What had she told him? Had he already known?_

When I stalled, processing that information, James let his eyes trail over my face. His gaze settled on my lips for a moment too long, his hand caressing my face followed his gaze and his thumb traced the edge of my bottom lip for a touch.

I leaned into his touch before I could stop myself.

“Can we come inside?” he asked, his voice low. I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything right in that moment. And then I was pulling out my keys and leading them inside. James wheeled my chair in for me, even carried it up the stairs. Harris refused to let go of my hand.

When we made it inside, I led Harris over to the sofa. The place was a mess, and I was slightly embarrassed about it, because it only showed to the both of them just how much I’d truly fallen apart over the last few weeks on my own.

James shut the door behind us and then came to sit down.

I frowned, getting up out of my seat and moving towards the kitchen. Harris had finally let go of me and was staring at the row of books in my bookcase near the window. He distracted himself by going over and opening up one brightly covered one.

“Uhm… coffee?” I asked, wiping at my eye before looking at James. It was weird to see them both in my small space. James sat rigid on my sofa, as if he were waiting for me to snap again. That almost broke me.

Then he nodded.

“That’d be great…”

I nodded and then excused myself to my small kitchen. When things were boiling and getting themselves ready, I leant against my refrigerator with my head in my hands. _How the fuck had I gotten here…? With these two boys in my house?_

_What the hell was I going to say to them to explain myself?_

The coffee finished before I could contemplate much more. I turned to fix two cups. Then I frowned. When I turned back around to go and ask James if he wanted cream or sugar, I was startled to find him leaning against the doorframe.

“Just black is fine,” he said, as if reading my mind. My lips clamped shut and I nodded, handing a mug over to him. He took it silently, instead just watching me. I sighed, fixing the rest of my drink before leaning against the sink and taking a sip.

I was grateful this conversation was going to happen away from Harris’ earshot if we had to have it at all. My stomach was in knots at having to tell James the truth of my life after holding the secret so close to my chest for so long.

My eyes were on the floor before I sighed.

“I’m sorry I left,” I finally managed to utter, my eyes lifting to meet James’ briefly. He pursed his lips sympathetically, placing his mug down on the counter beside him. He stood across from me in my small kitchen, his presence only making it feel smaller and smaller.

“You know that you could have just come and talked to me,” he said gently. “I would have understood instead of feeling scared out of my mind.”

I frowned at that.

“Scared?”

James let out a long breath, then nodded. “Yeah. You left in such a rush, I was afraid it was me who’d done something to upset you. I was a fucking mess when you left, Yvie. I thought it was because of what I told you about Sofia.”

I winced.

“I figured you thought the worst of me for watching my wife die in front of me,” he said, his eyes sad. “But then I walked into the office and found the place in a mess and was immediately confused. I cleaned the place up, not really thinking twice about it until Cecelia called me a few days later.”

Tears lined my eyes but I didn’t let them fall.

“I’m so sorry I put you through that. I don’t know how much Cece told you–”

“Just bits and pieces. She was very vague. She wanted for me to hear it from you first. But she told me enough to put a few pieces together. And then I realized that the reason the office was torn apart was because you were looking through Harris’ files”

I nodded. “Yeah… I uhh… I mean, he…”

I sighed, running a hand over my face, trying to wipe away the tears before they could fall and make me feel even worse.

“Hey, hey, hey,” James reassured me, crossing the threshold between us and putting his hands on my arms and my shoulders and stroking down my cardigan to soothe me. “Just take your time with this,” he said. When I looked up at him through bleary eyes, his shoulders sagged empathetically and I realized that he was feeling just as much emotion about this as I was.

He leaned forward and pressed his lips long and softly against my forehead. I choked out a sob at how gentle he was. My fingers tangled in his shirt at his waist, holding him to me as I let him lay his love on me.

Love I still didn’t think I’d earned.

“Tell me in your own words,” he whispered, his breath ghosting across my skin and making me close my eyes.

I took a long breath. I let my thoughts wander to the first moment I’d met Rio, and then I felt the words flowing from my lips.

“In college, I was in an on-off relationship with this guy. We weren’t like _together_ together. We just engaged in casual sex like most college kids. He was older than me, and then after we broke up, I found out I was pregnant with his kid.”

My voice trailed off for a moment and James wrapped an arm around my back, his fingers at the base of my neck and stroking down to the middle of my back, over and over. Soothing me. I leaned into his touch.

“I mean, we were careful, but sometimes protection just isn’t enough. Then after I told him, he was all in for it, despite us not being on good terms. I didn’t know what to do with myself, because I’d never really pictured myself having kids. I didn’t really want to have a baby, especially not so early into my life. I felt like all my choices and opportunities were being taken from me.”

My hands moved from his front to his sides, then around his back as I linked my hands together around him and let myself relax into him.

“My parents wouldn’t talk to me after I told them that I was considering having an abortion. They’re very religious, and very pro-life. They made me so mad, like they valued that baby’s life over mine. I haven’t spoken to them since. I decided not to go through with the abortion, but then after that I had a really hard pregnancy.”

I felt James squeeze me a little tighter, like he knew instinctively that the next part of my story was hard to relive.

“I felt like I couldn’t tell Rio – the guy I slept with – about my fears and what I wanted from life, because he treated me the same way my parents did, and talked about the baby the same way. And then I had a miscarriage scare. And I just snapped and I told him that for a tiny moment I’d been relieved the baby might be gone because it would mean I’d have my life back.

“And then I told him that that feeling of relief had been so fleeting and so overtaken with guilt that I knew in my heart I hadn’t meant it. But that had been too much for him and then he left me. I haven’t seen hide or hair of him since.”

I sighed, taking a deep breath to continue with the last part.

“Then Cece came to help me with my last weeks of pregnancy. When I went into labor, it was fairly and uncharacteristically fast for someone’s first. He breached and the cord was around his neck and he almost died. After I held him for the first time, I knew I’d already made the decision to give him up because I couldn’t give him a good life. Not when I was practically still a kid myself.”

James’ hands stilled for a moment on my body, and I knew that he was reacting to what he knew was coming next.

“So, I left him at the hospital to be adopted and it tore me apart completely. I never really got over it. His name was Nico, but I asked the nurses not to keep the name, instead to let his new family give him a name.”

I pulled away from James to look up into his eyes. Tears were streaming from mine. My fingers gripped at his shirt, begging him to understand my pain. He was looking down at me with just the same emotion. He probably was remembering coming across my baby in the hospital and feeling the overwhelming need to bring him home.

“My Nico is sitting in that living room right now,” I finally admitted, my breath hitching. I watched a heartbreaking tear roll down James’ cheek. “Only, I know he’s not my Nico anymore. He’s your Harris. And the day I left was when I realized who he really was. I found his birth certificate in his files and I knew I needed to get out of there. You had given him a life when I abandoned him, and I wasn’t supposed to ever have any part of it. And I knew it wouldn’t have been fair for me to ask for a place in his life when you and Sofia had done all the heavy lifting.”

James lifted his hand to trace his finger over the shape of my nose and my lips and swipe under my eyes, all while keeping his gaze locked with mine.

My lips trembled, and I realized his were, too. This was all too much for either of us, and we were only just managing to hold the broken pieces of each other together.

A mother without a child. A husband without a wife.

“But I still don’t understand,” James whispered, pressing himself closer to me, if that were even possible. “I don’t understand why you had to leave. You were fitting right with us, in a way I don’t think either of us anticipated. Did you not think I’d understand if you told all this to me back then?”

“I barely had the capacity to comprehend it all myself, James,” I whispered. “I couldn’t expect it of you, too. Not when the coincidence of me meeting you was already so unbelievable.”

James sighed, his eyes closing.

“And I gave up my Nico for a better life. Which he has now. So, there’s no reason for me to be a part of it when you’ve done such a good job. I would only fuck him up,” I muttered.

James’ eyes tore open, searching through mine with a fierce intensity I didn’t know he had.

“That’s bullshit, Yvie,” he said, his voice low but completely serious. “He loves you and you know it. He needs you. And I need you, too.”

My breath hitched at his words. He winced.

“So, please tell me right here and right now, baby. What do you _really_ want, deep down in your heart of hearts? Do you want to be a part of his life? Because he wants you to. And I want you to. Neither of us care about any of this history because all we know and all we believe is that you fit and you belong with us.

“And outside of you being there for Harris, _I_ want _you_ , too. I love you, Yvonne. I don’t know when it happened, but I do. So, now I’m asking you to please come back to us. _Please come home_. Where you’re wanted and needed and loved. Not here where you’re lonely and broken.”

I choked out a sob as my forehead leant forward to press against James’, both our eyes closed. And then I felt someone tugging at the trim of my cardigan. I looked down to see Harris with his eyes shining as he looked up at me. I had no idea how much he’d heard. I didn’t know if he was ready to know he was biologically mine.

“Please come home, Yvie,” he pleaded. James let me go and leaned down to hoist his son onto his hip so that he could reach the both of us. Harris wrapped an arm around my shoulders, holding me close to the both of them.

Tears were streaming down my face. Every word out of his beautiful mouth had made my body soar. I was confused, but things were starting to make sense. I had been a fucking idiot, I knew that. But I’d had no way of knowing that he’d react this way to my story, my truth.

And now here he was, telling me that my truth only made him love me more.

And I loved him too.

And then I was crying and nodding because I didn’t know how to do anything else when things were falling into place so fucking well. But my family was at my fingertips and they were clutching me close like they’d never let go, and I was grasping at them too.

I felt my heart pumping at the fear of not having felt this way in so long. But the rest of me was feeling so fucking whole. How had I ever been so stupid as to give this up?

“If you decline, Harris and I will just move to New York and nothing you say will stop us,” James said seriously, his hand caressing my face as he pulled me closer to him.

I shook my head. “No, you’re not giving up your ranch. I’ll come with you,” I said, my voice falling into a whisper. My whole body celebrated, as if knowing that this was the permanent change that it had been searching for for the last few weeks.

Harris let out a whoop and James’ lips spread into a grin wider than I thought possible. But then my smile was splitting my face in half too, and I was pulling him into me and letting my lips smash against his.

In the distance, I heard Harris letting out a mewl of discomfort and squirming in his father’s arms, which only made us chuckle into our kiss.

I knew this change would be permanent for me. Now that I’d found my heart – in more ways than one – I wasn’t letting it disappear again. I’d been stupid enough to run from the opportunity once, and I’d be damned if I let it happen again.

These boys were my family, and I wasn’t letting them go. And they weren’t letting me go either. Our life was surely not to be perfect, but it was perfect enough for me.

I made a mental note to accept Myron Banks’ offer for a roaming position, knowing I would set up camp in Kansas as he had. I was finally seeing the appeal in the state.

I laughed into James’ kiss, probably confusing him, but I didn’t care, I was feeling giddy. They were everywhere I wanted to be, and more. I’d found my heart with them, and found myself without even realizing myself in the process.

Finding yourself and knowing yourself, those are the beginnings for self-acceptance. You aren’t a ten-dollar bill in last winter’s coat pocket, stashed away as a surprise for later. You can spend your whole life thinking that you’re one person. In the blink of an eye, everything can change.

Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people’s opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are.

 _Finding yourself_ is about returning to yourself. Unlearning the years of other people’s so-called expressions of you about who you are and how you should be. Finding yourself is remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you.

But then again, life isn’t about finding yourself. It is about _creating_ yourself.

In my eyes, who you are and who you want to be aren’t so totally different. They’re like two sides of the same coin. You can’t really have one without the other.

Sure, life is about growth and change, but you know how people say ‘it takes a village’ to raise a person? I believe that… at least, _now_ I do.

I think that we’re all a product of our surroundings and our peers, and I think that it’s up to each individual person to surround themselves with the _right_ village.

Life shouldn’t be a solo search for who you are on the inside. Because at the end of the day, no one can _see_ the inside of you. Life is about how you are to those around you. It’s not some metaphor and it’s not a dress rehearsal.

But, maybe the best way to find yourself is to get lost in the first place.

Which, I guess applied to me, too. I was certainly lost.

But I’ve learnt to realize that there are really only two things that matter to show people who you really are. What makes you _happy_ , and what gives you _meaning_.

I didn’t always know that.

My village had to teach me…

And they taught to accept my decisions in the past. And they taught me how to love myself, and to accept the love that they gave me, because even if I didn’t think I deserved it, _I did._

Because in destroying my family the first time, I had made another whole. And then that family had become my family, sliding into place as if this were the fate of the world in the first place.

And how could I not deserve the love they gave me, when I gave mine so freely.

Because I did. I loved those two boys more than they’d ever know. And it had taken a lot of heartache to get there, but knowing that fact and accepting it were the first steps to healing my heart.

And they promised they’d be with me every step of the way.

.

**We accept the love we think we deserve, but I’m here to tell you that there will always be someone out there who knows you deserve more than even that, too.**


	17. Epilogue: In Which He Gets Her Back

**EPILOGUE: In Which He Gets Her Back**

**James**

**10 months later**

There were kids running around everywhere in my living room.

The place was a mess in the fashion that only children can seem to turn it into. Like a tornado had blasted through the space or something.

The stereo was playing something that Anya had put on that I didn’t recognize. I was too busy trying not to lose my head over the mess that had just been made in the living room.

The same mess that I only had myself to help clean up. All while the kids were still running amuck. The whole thing was a disaster and sure to only get worse.

I really wished Yvie would hurry up.

I cast my eyes over the banners and balloons strung up around the room, and then I was trying to coral Stella out from the mound of ripped up wrapping paper that she’d somehow made a nest from.

“Hey, kids! Why don’t we head out to the back yard?!”

I looked over to the doorway where Cecelia was standing with her arms raised, trying to wave the children outside so that I might be able to make sense of my house again.

“We’ve got some space set up for some three-legged races!” Anya joined in enthusiastically. The cheers from the children were like music to my ears as they all followed the two women outside. Harris’ whole class had come to the house for his birthday party, which he had been overjoyed at.

He had been concerned that no one would show, hence why Yvie had invited her sister, Cecelia – who had also brought her girlfriend, Liza – as well as Anya – who had brought her fiancé, Matthew – and Scooter and a few of my other friends who Harris knew.

Yvie had gone all out for the party, and I knew why. She felt guilty for missing all of his other ones, so she was determined to make this one as memorable as possible, but she didn’t realize that even without all the bells and whistles, having the three of us together would have been a memorable birthday for our son anyway.

Stella yapped happily as she rolled over and ran out the door after all the kids. She was having a field day. She’d never received so many belly rubs in her life. She was sure to be horribly behaved for the next week at least while she came down from her high. That or she’d just sleep _very_ well tonight.

All my friends were milling about my kitchen and out to the backyard, drinking with Harris’ schoolfriends’ parents and watching over their children. None of them volunteered to help clean up, which I didn’t exactly blame them for. I loathed cleaning up messes almost as much, though I should have been used to it by now.

I checked my watch as I threw balls of wrapping paper into a trash bag to go out to the recycling. Yvie was already a half hour later than she’d hoped to be. She hadn’t wanted to leave in the first place, but when we’d opened the box that Harris’ birthday cake had come in, we’d known there was no way we could serve it up to he and his friends.

And so had begun the challenge to entertain his class after gift giving after already promising it was cake time.

Because you see, we had ordered a cake in the shape of Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb. Instead, the baker must have heard something much different over the phone, because instead of a platypus, Yvie and I had opened the cake box to find a penis shaped cake.

“You have to admit, it’s a very _pretty_ penis, though,” Yvie had smirked, trying hard to stifle her laughs. She wasn’t exactly wrong. It was pink with lots of florals and different uses of an icing nib. It was obvious the decorator had had a lot of fun with its embellishments.

And then the seriousness of our dilemma had hit Yvie and she’d spiralled, thinking she’d ruined Harris’ birthday.

“Hey,” I smiled, pulling her into me. “It’s probably just a big misunderstanding.”

“Big is an understatement,” she muttered, horrified, her eyes still glued to the cake. I rolled my eyes.

“It’s no problem, baby. I’ll just take it back to the bakery and see what they can do on short notice. You distract the kids somehow. Musical chairs or pin the tail on the donkey. Normal party games, you know?”

Yvie had scoffed and waved me off, saying that she’d be the one to go. She’d done all the dealings with the bakery, so she felt she had the right to yell at them for fucking up her son’s birthday cake so drastically.

And I had let her go, because it had been obvious to me that she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I had quickly learned how stubborn she was. So, after giving her a chaste kiss to the lips, she had vanished out to town.

I sighed as I began putting cushions and various sections of my sofa back together. Then I arranged all of Harris’ new gifts from the floor to the table where they’d been stacked before they’d been opened.

He’d never had so many new toys and I knew he was very excited to try them all out.

The look on both his and Yvie’s faces as he’d opened all his gifts had been enough to make my heart swell. My little family was so precious to me, and I wouldn’t be doing anything ever again to put it in jeopardy.

When my house looked a modicum of what it had before everyone had arrived, I nodded to myself and walked out to the backyard to where parents and children laughed and chanted as duo’s made their way to the finish line with their legs tied.

The smiles on those kids faces made my day, but none so much as the wide, ear to ear grin plastered across my son’s face. His hair swung in his eyes, his braids adorned with little blue beads this week – as had been his request for his birthday – but there was no denying that the kid was at one of the happiest points I’d ever seen him. It gave me so much hope for our future.

And then my ear pricked as I heard tires on the loose gravel of my driveway. I gave one last smile at the birthday boy before heading inside. Yvie came through the door looking flustered, but underneath, pleased. I grinned at her.

“How’d it go?”

Yvie let out a sigh, releasing all of the tension I’m sure she felt alone in the car. She put her bag down on the table beside the doorway and then I followed her to the kitchen as she spoke.

“All good. Our cake was mixed up with another order. Trust me, the bachelorette party was _very_ confused to get a platypus cake,” she laughed. That laugh was one of my favorite sounds in the entire world. “Took some time for the maid of honor to get back to the shop, which is why I was gone so long, but no fear, I come bearing the _correct_ cake this time.”

I grinned. “Lesson learnt,” I chuckled. “We’ll be checking the cake before we leave the shop the first time from now on.”

“Oath,” Yvie laughed, cocking her eyebrow as she nodded. Then I waited for her to set the cake down before I pulled her into my arms and laid a long kiss on her lips, as if even the small time apart had pained me.

Maybe it had. Or maybe I just knew now to treat every moment with her as precious. She squeaked in surprise before melting into my arms, pulling me just as close to kiss me. Then she let out that little moan of satisfaction into our embrace, the one that I loved. I smiled to myself before letting her push me off her.

She rolled her eyes at me before beckoning me to take a look at the cake. Opening the lid, I grinned down at the little green animal that made our son grin every morning over his cereal.

“Looks perfect, baby,” I smiled, hooking my arm around her waist. She let herself lean into me for a moment before she moved to swipe the candles from the counter.

She placed the big number six candle in the middle of Perry’s hat, before sticking a few sparklers into the rest of him.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” she grinned, waving me away from her. “Go get the kids before these things blow out.”

I grinned at her, pinching her sides before she bumped me with her hip. I left the room and managed to get all the kids back into the living room. It hadn’t taken much, just one yell of ‘who wants cake?!’ and then I’d almost been trampled in a six-year-old stampede. It had been my fault for not getting out of the way, really.

Scooter had laughed at me trying to dodge the little tykes. I couldn’t exactly throw the bird up at him with so many innocent eyes hanging around – which he knew – so I opted for sticking my tongue out indignantly at him.

Harris sat at the coffee table in the living room, with all the kids mustered around him. There was a space on either side of him for Yvie and I to sit, I presumed, because Anya was holding a her phone ready in her hands for a photo.

That, and Harris was patting at the space beside him and calling my name. I smiled, stepping around a few kids to take the seat. It was squishy, but no one seemed to mind.

“Alright, everybody!” Yvie called out from the kitchen. “Best voices, because it’s time to sing! _Haaaaappy Birthdaaaay toooo yoooouuuu…”_

The group joined in as she brought the cake out and set it in front of Harris. The smile on his face was as huge as widening of his eyes. I smiled and Yvie sat down on his other side as the kids finished up their song.

“Alright, lean in close, guys,” Anya smiled. “And say, cheeeeeese.”

My arm found Yvie’s around Harris’ back and I held my family close. I grinned as Anya snapped a photo and then Harris was blowing out what he could of his candles and his classmates were cheering.

“For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow,” Cece started singing.

“For he’s a jolly good fellow, and so say all of us!” The group cheered.

And then my eyes widened as a hand full of cake and icing swiped right down my face. My jaw dropped and then I was looking towards Harris, whose hand was full of cake. His grin was wide. _I believe I’ve found my culprit_ , I thought.

Yvie was trying – not very well, I might add – to stifle her laughter at his other side. And then, through my haze of cream and sponge cake, I saw her press a twenty into Harris’ other waiting hand.

And then Harris was looking at me with his arms raised in surrender. And he was falling into Yvie with laughter as well.

“It was Mom’s idea,” he squeaked out, grinning at me in triumph. Yvie was cackling so hard that she almost fell off the sofa. The other kids had all joined in to laugh, too.

“Oh, is that right?” I grinned, a challenge clear in my voice. Because Yvie had just declared war, and I was going to get her for it.

I watched Yvie’s eyes widened through her laughter as she started to inch away from me. And then I licked my lips. The cake was actually pretty good. Sad it was about to go to waste.

“FOOD FIGHT!” I yelled, and then my hand was diving into the cake. The kids around me screamed in happiness and I knew that what I’d done would make my living room fall into disrepair, but I couldn’t care less right now. We could hire someone to clean it for all I cared. Or we could move into the house that Yvie’s boss had bought for her when she moved to Kansas. She hadn’t ever spent more than a few nights in it anyway.

I got up from the sofa and saw as adults and children all grabbed a handful of cake or chips or pretzels or any kind of food they could find and then they were smearing it on eachother as the room filled with laughter.

Through the chaos, I could see Yvie making a run for the safety of the kitchen. Harris was engaged in a fight with a girl from school as she mushed a brownie into his cheek as he laughed.

I chased after Yvie. Before she could make it out of the room, I tackled her and she howled with laughter as I smeared the funfetti cake down her nose and her lips. And then I was pressing my cake flavored lips to hers and she was wrapping her arms around me as we lay on the floor, shuddering with laughter.

She couldn’t hold our kiss for long because she was too busy giggling and I grinned before pressing kisses to her cake covered face. And then she squirmed when I let my tongue race up the side of her cheek, swiping a long taste of her.

“Eeewwww,” she hollered, pawing me off her as I just laughed. She managed to roll us over and then get up.

“I’m gonna get you back for that, later,” she grinned.

“Challenge accepted,” I laughed, and then she was helping me up and we were running after Harris to press a cake smushed kiss into each side of his cheeks as he laughed.

The chaos of the party didn’t die down for hours. At one point, I had moved one of my garden hoses to the backyard and the party had made a game of cleaning the cake off themselves through the water.

Stella had a great time licking the remnants from everyone else.

Our living room would have to be completely gutted. There was no way to get those stains out, but neither Yvie nor I cared, because as we tucked our son into bed that night, he told us that it was the best birthday that he’d ever had.

The smile on Yvie’s face at that had been the biggest I’d ever seen it. She had never had to feel guilty about missing anything in his life, but I knew that she probably always would. I could only hope that with each passing day with us, the pain of having to let him go would ease with the love for getting him back.

Harris didn’t know yet that Yvie was his biological mother. We had opted to wait to tell him the truth of his birth until he was a little older, because right now we were enjoying being a small little family. Even though I hadn’t made any of that official yet. I had a small box in the back of my closet though, and I was just waiting for the right moment to make that offer to Yvie.

I knew that she was what I wanted for the rest of my life, and I knew Harris felt the same. And deep down inside me, I knew Yvie felt the same, too, so I didn’t know why I was waiting…

I just knew I needed the absolute perfect moment before making anything of it.

I had already asked Cece for her blessing, which she’d happily given. It was just a matter of time, now.

After tucking Harris into bed, I had wasted no time pulling Yvie into our room and ridding us of our clothes. She lay on the mattress beneath me with a satisfied smile on her face as she gazed up at me.

I took my time pressing my lips to every inch of her skin and teasing her slowly, tempting her with every breath. I liked the way her breath hitched and she shivered with wanting beneath me. I liked the way I knew her and she knew me. She could drive me crazy with one look if she tried, and I knew I could do the same.

Her body trembled at my fingertips as my tongue pressed against a nerve. Her hands were all over me, a feather light touch and strong as a vice all the same. An enigma, she was. _My_ enigma. Forever.

When I was done teasing, and she was biting her tongue to keep from screaming, I crawled my way back up her body to hold her lips with mine. And then I was rising up on my knees to reach for my nightstand where I kept my condoms.

Her hands were on my skin, anywhere I could reach and I smiled softly at her as my fingers clutched a small square of foil.

But then she was sitting up before me and her hand was cupping my face. She looked squarely into my eyes, unafraid. But her touch was something else, coiled tight like a spring.

She was nervous. I frowned at her and she shook her head. Her free hand found mine, taking the condom from my fingers and placing it easily on the nightstand. Then she took a shaky breath and bit her lip, her eyes searching mine for something. For what, I couldn’t tell.

“I want to try,” she whispered finally. My eyebrows furrowed. I didn’t understand why she was nervous to ask. We’d tried it raw quite a few times. It was amazing – _she_ was amazing – but I knew her cycle.

“But I thought you were ovulating…” I trailed off. She was looking at me. I couldn’t decipher that look. I only knew her mind was made up. There was no changing it.

And then it hit me.

My eyes widened and my lips parted. My hands came up, cupping at both sides of her face as I stared down at her, looking for any lick of doubt. She bit her lip.

“Do you want to?” she asked softly. “I mean, I know it might be risky… but I’m ready. I want you, and I want this, and I want this with you.”

My jaw dropped.

“ _Baby_ …” I trailed off. “You’re sure you want this? A baby?”

Tears sprouted at the edges of her eyes and it made me hold her tighter in my arms. She nodded once.

“I didn’t think I wanted to have another baby,” she managed to whisper, her voice so low I almost didn’t hear her. “But that was before I knew I’d ever see my other baby again. Before I knew I’d get him back forever. And before I met _you_. And now I know I’m ready because I love you and I want to take this step with you. I want this family – _our_ _family_ – and I want it to grow. That is… if you do, too.”

My heart skipped a beat in my chest and I closed my eyes, leaning close to her and pressing my forehead against hers. My thumb shot out to swipe across her bottom lip as it trembled.

One of her hands moved to circle around my wrist while the other cupped at the back of my neck, holding me to her as much as I was holding her to me.

I pressed a light, long kiss to her lips. She took a deep breath when we parted, just far enough apart for me to stare into her eyes without them crossing.

“I love you,” I whispered into our shared bubble. “And nothing would make me happier in this world than seeing you carry our child…”

Yvonne frowned. “But…”

A small smile ticked at the side of my lips.

“But, I want you to promise me that you’ll let me put a ring on it, first…”

Yvie’s jaw dropped, drawing back from me so that I could see how wide her eyes were.

“James… You– I– What?!”

I grinned and then got up from the bed. I rifled through my closet for a moment before pulling out the little velvet box. Perfect setting be damned. My girl telling me she wanted to carry more of my babies was about as perfect as I’d ever get. And I’d have been stupid not to do this now.

I walked easily back to the bed and sat astride Yvie. Her eyes were on the box.

“How long have you had that?” she whispered, her voice low, her eyes filled with happy tears. I smiled, fixing her chin between my thumb and finger and making her look at me.

“I bought it in New York.”

A tear fell down her cheek and I smiled softly at her.

“And what if I hadn’t come back here with you, then?”

I smiled again, opening the box and sliding the simple ring onto her finger. I didn’t need to ask the question or hear her answer. Her admission of wanting me to knock her up was proposal enough for me.

“Then I’d have moved to the city like I told you I would. And then I would have fought tooth and nail to get you back, because this is exactly where you belong,” I smiled. I twined my fingers with hers, with both hands, and then I drew her arms over her head and I leaned forward to pin her beneath me.

The cool studs in her nipples pressed against my chest and my skin heated at the thought. They were more attractive than she knew.

“So, you knew then that you wanted to be with me?” she asked, her voice low, our lips mere breaths apart.

I smiled down at her easily. “Yes. Just the same as you knew you wanted our baby inside you just now.”

Yvie hiccupped out a breath and I grinned, pressing a kiss to the tip of her nose.

“At least, I hope you were serious about that,” I said, pressing my apex against hers. She gasped, her back arching her chest into mine harder. She wrapped one leg around my waist, her heel digging into my ass and pressing our cores closer together.

Then she bit her lip.

“Oh, I was serious,” she smiled. “So, you’d better bring your A-Game.” Though she still had starry tears in her eyes, she managed to cock her eyebrow in challenge and I chuckled lowly into her as I slid smoothly inside her. And then her lips met mine, her jaw tilted upwards to meet mine slow and long, savoring our union.

And then there was something different about that night. Everything we did was slow, but beautiful. It weighed heavily on me, but the weight was the most welcome thing I’d ever brought into my home.

It was like our bodies knew that that night was one of the most important of our lives. And as the moonlight bounced off the glint of her new frosting, and the tip of her nose as she arched her neck as I hit the spot inside her that made us both furrow our eyebrows and clench – I knew that this night was important.

For so many reasons.

We belonged to each other that night. We had claimed each other and wanted each other and accepted each other. And even when we’d finished, I knew we’d accomplished what we’d set out to. I knew that we’d planted the seed of our new life together.

And so as she fell asleep in my arms, my hand drifted down to her midsection and splayed out across her navel. My lips were in her hair and I was smiling. Some of my nights were still sleepless, but they were getting better. And at least in these sleepless nights, I had something new to live for. I had something else to look forward to in the morning with my beautiful son, and my beautiful soon-to-be wife.

In these sleepless nights, I had a new distraction, and I reveled in this one. This sleepless night was one of the happiest I’d had. So, with my palm warm against her skin, I let my words fall into her hair, knowing that they’d travel to the life we’d just made.

And this life was made up of two parents that would love it more than life itself. This heart was born from a union that was soft and strong and treasured. Harris was Yvie’s heart. But this heart was mine. It was ours.

“And you’ll make our family even more whole,” I whispered to it, knowing it would hear me somehow. Yvie cuddled closer to me subconsciously, as if some part of her heard me too.

And I smiled, drawing her close and holding her firm until the sun rose. I knew that in any sleepless night that were to come, I’d have someone warm to hold and love and get me through.

My small piece of forever. And I wouldn’t give it up for a thing in the world.

And then she’d wake up again and we’d tackle the day together. Yvie, and I, and our son, and our heart.

.

**This took me to a place I wasn’t expecting.**

**Thankyou all so much for sticking with this story, it took a piece of my heart that I didn’t realize I could give. As the youths say, it hit me different, both to write and to read and to experience you all reading it, too.**

**This was a story that I attempted as my very first when I joined Wattpad almost eight years ago. It was called ‘My Country Boy’ at the time. But Wattpad wasn’t ready for it then, and neither was I, and I think I deleted it after two chapters, knowing I couldn’t give it justice.**

**And now with this first full draft, I think I can safely say that justice has been properly served. These characters are as much my heart as Harris is Yvie’s, and I’ve loved being able to share it with you all. It was a wild ride and I can’t wait for the next one. I love you all so much.**

**-K**


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